I've always thought I would make a good judge. There are several times I have heard about a court case, felt strongly about how the decision SHOULD go, but known that I would have to rule against my own interests, because it is not the law. It would not be my job to rewrite the laws, but just to determine whether they were followed or not.

You're right. It is a scary thought. I am just about as liberal as they come, and I don't like to hear about liberal judges or decisions any more than I like to hear about conservative ones. A judge should not be associated with a political viewpoint, even if that viewpoint happens to agree with my own. :S

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Sassys

that for every new President the power to "pick" a winner judge, tells me that the possibility of a judges decision being biased does indeed exist. Then again I am somewhat of a cynic and don't trust the system nor it's ability to be truly open minded and fair. Laws change for presumably a good reason, so to follow it to the letter if it's a somewhat antiquated law, should be weighed against current common sense.

In many cases, I disagree with you. I think it is more important for a judge to simply judge. A good judge will make clear that they do not agree with the law, and they find it personally distasteful, but that is the law. I would rather they uphold that, because as soon as they justify ruling a different way because that's the way it SHOULD be, it becomes much easier to rule that way in the future.

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Ahhh, but in that case, sending an 18 year old away for life for a pot conviction would be cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore unconstitutional. (And even that would depend on the merits of the case.)

You see, it's laws like these that make me think that there is no such thing as "current common sense". There are reactionary laws made to make the populace feel good. And there are ways around these laws. Let me give you an example that directly affects me. In many areas, commercial landlords can lose their property if they rent to illegal immigrants. In fact, in many cases, they can lose their property if they rent to legal immigrants, but those immigrants hire illegal ones. Now, as a commercial landlord, this is scary to me. I have a Mexican restaurant as one of my tenants. A) The government has already dealt with them in a hundred different ways, from taxation matters to permits to liquor licenses, to food handling licenses, etc. If the government cannot figure out that they are illegal, how am I supposed to manage? B) If my state passes this law, and THEY hire one undocumented worker, I lose my building. So what am I likely to do?? I'm likely to tell the people with brown skin that they cannot occupy my building. I put myself out of a renter, them out of a job, my city out of good food and a better economy. All because "current common sense" says that we have to do something about the illegal immigration problem now. Fortunately, there are laws that conflict with this, and I expect it to be tossed out by the courts. Unless those courts give in to the wisdom of the day...

I cannot think of a single case where it would be more beneficial for a judge to bring their own politics into it. And those come into it when they have to decide whether a law should be overturned because they think it's outdated. I should not be able to predict ANY judge's ruling, based on their own politics.

Yeah, I'm gonna bring up the 800lb. gorilla in the room. Abortion. There are many who say that the wrong decision was made in Roe v. Wade. There are many who want to keep the decision just like it is. So which one is it? Is it an outdated decision that needs revisiting? Is it a proper decision? Depends on who you ask. All I know is that I don't want them deciding all over again because there's some adgenda to push.

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