SCOTUS and judges
Posted by Moonage on 03 Oct 2005 | Tagged as: The Legal Process
The nomination of Harriet Miers has raised the issue of whether or not
Supreme Court justices should have prior judge experience. I don’t personally
think they do. 35 Supreme Court justices in the past have not. Hasn’t seem to
have hurt the SCOTUS much. However, fresh on the heels of the nomination, CNN is
running a poll asking whether Supreme Court justices should have previous
experience on the bench. At the time of this post, 78% seem to think so:
I would entertain some people’s thoughts as to why bench experience is
important. IMO, if they have legal experience, being a judge is
irrelevent.
1 Comment »
on 04 Oct 2005 at 7:43 am 1.Bryan Kerwick
said …
Anyone who knows and understands the Constitution can be a Supreme Court Justice. Prior legal experience is not required nor is experience on the bench. Our legal system is an advisarial type where two or more opposing lawyers make arguments for their case. The judge is basically a referee who is supposed to be impartial as is the jury. Aside from Lawyers and Judges trying to keep their ol’ boy network intact, I see no reason why any legal experience is required. So long as one is fair, impartial and knowledgeable, there are no other requirements. IMO we should be picking judges from outside the legal circles so they truely are fair and impartial.