Illinois elects judges.
It results in political hacks with weak judicial skills being selected. Some of these judges are indentured to organized crime.
Liberal defenders of the election of judges point to the fact that election, esp. with the creation of small judicial subcircuits, has resulted in increased minority representation on the bench.
While the subcircuits have resulted in more Blacks and Latinos on the bench, they are the politically connected Blacks and Latinos, not necessarily the best Black or Latino legal minds.
In defense of the system, not everything that requires a judge requires the wisdom of Solomon. Do you need the best legal minds in the county handling traffic court? Evictions? The judge that manages the circuit courts sends the better justices to the more challenging courts and the lesser justices do the routine stuff.
Part of my beef with electing judges is that nobody is really accountable. Committeemen and ward bosses can put their muscle behind anybody that's passed the bar and when the person gets elected the political patron can just shrug and say the people chose the judge.
Organized crime has a clear incentive to get a number of their people on the bench. It's fairly straightforward for them to cut a deal with a powerful committeeman or ward boss. Organized crime puts up money and precinct workers and nobody's the wiser.
And then it's a matter of working the judge who does assignments to get to criminal courts. And organized crime merely has to bribe or otherwise persuade the bureaucrat that determines which judges get which cases.
Alternate system
Judges should be screened like other professionals seeking employment. There should be a formal application process with a committee to review qualifications and interview individuals to determine if they have the appropriate temperment.
But who will serve on these committees? I would like to see a mix of stakeholders involved in the process: people who have used the courts, academices, including law professors, journalists, religious leaders, community organization activists, etc.
If it's broad-based, it will be harder to corrupt the process. I also like the idea of creating a huge pool of people and picking from it at random. This makes it harder for organized crime to get their people into the process.
