No matter their expertise I wouldn’t want the construction worker working as my pharmacist without any training.
Yet we’re ok with giving essentially the entire power of the state to people with no training or experience in law.
Yes, that's what democracy is, for better or worse: the power of the state is ultimately vested in the people, regardless of training, background, gender, skin color, etc. etc. Restricting power to those who are trained in law, or any other narrowly defined group, is called oligarchy. It generally has good outcomes for the oligarchs and those who are close to them, not so much for everyone else.
As a Canadian, even after living in the US for over a decade, I find your comment baffling. For better or worse, the law is a complex subject both in jurisprudence and process. If judges can be significantly less knowledgeable than the attorneys that appear before them then how can the law be applied equally?
The US Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law yet how can that be realized if there are no minimum standards that apply to judges?
Two things that I cannot understand about the US: the election of judges and outright politicization of the mechanics of voting.
Note that you could apply the exact same principle to argue that legislators should be lawyers. After all, if you're not trained in the law, how can you possibly write a law? Or understand the many subtle ramifications of the law that someone else wrote that you're voting on? And why stop at legislators? Why not accept, say, literacy tests? How can a citizen possibly make an informed choice at the ballot box if they can't read a newspaper?
The point I'm trying to make is not that electing judges is good, only that it is, at least in the U.S., a direct consequence of democracy. You may decide that democracy is more trouble than it's worth, and cite this stupidity as evidence. But what you cannot do is say that electing judges is stupid and also that you believe in democracy, because in the U.S. the one has followed directly from the other.
And note well: I am not advocating literacy tests. I am only pointing out the logical consequences of adopting the principle that judges should have special training.
BTW, one of the reasons things are the way they are is that the "indigent and commoners" don't necessarily believe they'll get a fairer shake from someone who has a JD from Harvard than someone who doesn't.
No, it's not. It's perfectly reasonable in our democracy to expect judges to be trained in law in order to effectively do their jobs. Might as well let any random of the street be a doctor without training if that wasn't the case.
Non-legally trained people still participate through the jury system, and more importantly in the House where laws are created in the first place.
Manifestly not. If it were reasonable to expect this, then the founders would have written it into the Constitution, or the People would have changed the law in order to require it. The former didn't happen, and the latter hasn't happened. It may seem reasonable to you, but the whole point of democracy is that the law is not based on what seems reasonable to one person, only on what seems reasonable to the majority. And in this case, requiring judges be lawyers clearly doesn't seem reasonable to the majority, or things would be different.
This assumes that the current state of the law is tacitly approved by the majority of people, which isn't true. For example, polls strongly suggest that a strong majority (>60%) of Americans support marijuana legalization [1], but federal legalization is nowhere to be seen. Polls suggest that an even stronger majority (>80%) of Americans support background checks on all firearm purchases [2], but federal legislation again seems far away.
[1] https://apnews.com/8eb58810be2642b3a2c81e9da247ff80
[2] https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/oct/03/...
Sounds a lot like 1/12th of a jury.
Jury trials also have jury selection processes that allow lawyers from both sides to eliminate any poorly qualified jurors.
The jury selection process has nothing to do with qualifications of jurors. The prosecutors are primarily trying to eliminate people they think will be sympathetic and the defense is primarily looking to eliminate people they think might biased against their client.
Juror selection isn’t about qualifications. However, it does give both sides an opportunity to eliminate vested or deeply unqualified interests that may be biased against them. With a judge you have no such option.
All of this functions well... unless the electorate is uneducated or misled, and apathetic. That's the real problem in this case. People are winning popularity contests, because the only thing middle and high school taught most of the electorate was that you should be popular.
It isn't true everywhere. Reputation and reputation systems can and do function well. But they require a functional press, and an interested public.
The law is hardly a set of statutes. It's comprised of thousands of judicial opinions interpreting the code and articulating specific doctrines. Court made law is especially important in criminal law. It has nothing in common with reading a construction blueprint. It's honestly horrifying that there are people with legal authority that have no training applying the law.
Small claims court (the name varies depending on the state, but we're talking about 'Judge Judy' type courts here) is for the quick resolution of minor disputes. In most states, the formal rules of evidence don't apply.
And, in nearly all the states, one can appeal de novo the court's judgment to a 'real' court.
My state recently implemented a requirement that these lower court judges have law degrees. The quality of the court ha suffered... instead of a retired businessperson who has an interest in his community, we end up with incompetent lawyers who can't make a living in private practice. Or, worse, some person straight out of lawschool with zero legal or life experience.
Simply untrue in common law countries (e.g. the US). Criminal law is absolutely driven by judicial opinions and statutory interpretation.
> In most states, the formal rules of evidence don't apply.
This isn't about evidence. It's about interpreting many doctrines that vary wildly between states. A single statute (re: defenses, attempt, conspiracy, the requisite mens rea to hold someone liable) can yield totally different interpretations.
It's against the site rules to be rude in comments here. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules? When someone else is wrong, it's a great help to provide correct information, but please don't break the guidelines while doing so.
Your comment would be just fine without those first two sentences.
I have no idea how comparatively complex the law is. But that is hardly a justification for having less training. The potential for harm is the most important factor. That is why you have highly trained engineers or architects (for example). Because mistakes can destroy lives. I think the same should apply to judgeships
Pharmacists are hardly uneducated buffoons. And, what are we to make of 'underwear distributor'? Is there a correlation between a business person's judgment and the items they sell? I doubt it.
I can guarantee that the blueprints a construction worker uses, the policies an insurance agent sells, and the manuals a pharmacist is versed in are all much more complex than the laws governing the cases that come before these low-level courts.