Monitoring the Judiciary

Government in the United States creates three distinct branches: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. The Legislative and Executive branches are scrutinized, questioned, and monitored for performance daily. In November of each year we return to the polls to keep incumbents or vote them out of office; an easy decision to make based on their public actions in office. I argue we do not hold our judicial branch to the same level of accountability, but yet the decisions made by judges have more irreparable individual and societal impact than the other two branches of government.

In many states, judges are appointed to the bench by elected political leaders. This is true for example of the Supreme Court. When a Supreme Court vacancy comes about the media scrutinizes a President’s appointment as the Supreme Court Justice will sit for life and have much influence over the future of the country. Significant cases such as Roe v. Wade and Miranda are familiar to all of us. At the same time, lesser known cases such as Kelo v. City of New London can impact any private property owner.

At the state and county level the method of putting a judge on the bench may either be by appointment or vote. Although preferred, voting brings risks as many voters lack education about judicial candidates, and another conflict is created because who wants to see a judge campaigning for election? I can just imagine a platform like, “I’ll let you off every time if you elect me!” More important than election though is an adequate recall or confirmation process. In Volusia County this exists, but there is a bigger problem; we have no way to gauge the performance of the judiciary.

In sharp contrast to the local judicial branch, the legislative and executive branches of government are easy to monitor as voting on legislation is tracked, collated, and reported. When judges make bad decisions the only course of action is a complaint to the Judicial Qualifications Commission (JCQ) or filing an Appeal. The JCQ is a one-sided process allowing little opportunity for fairness to the complainant, and the appellate process is quite expensive. Recent Supreme Court appointee Justice Sotomayor is an excellent example of the failure of a proper judicial monitoring process. In her case Appeals were filed and her rulings were overturned 60% of the time. She may be a nice woman with sensitivities to certain groups, but her abuse of judicial discretion cost those who had to appeal to overturn her failed rulings. In other words, good people had to spend time and money to recover what was correct but had to argue against her errors in her position. An average person making bad decisions more than 5-10% of the time would be fired from their job, she averaged 60%.

I propose the establishment of a monitoring system to educate the public regarding judicial rulings and trends. I have heard speculation from friends about judges that tend to favor one group over another regardless of circumstances. An example of monitoring would be a Family Court system to track rulings by judge and by parent. The same could be done regarding fines in traffic court, sentencing by race and sex in criminal court, and whether favoritism is given to corporations or individuals in civil court.

Many of us believe justice is blind and pride ourselves in the belief judicial prejudice does not exist in the judiciary as we believe it does in other countries. However, with no quantifiable monitoring system I argue good people and families are harmed irreparably by the unaccountable Judiciary every day.