chapter 7: judges

behavioral accountability

involves holding individual judges answerable for their conduct on the bench; because judges are the human element of the justice system, conduct that reflects badly on the integrity and impartiality of the justice system is likely to decrease public trust in the judiciary and should be deterred

decisional accountability

involves holding judges answerable for judicial rulings; were a judge to deliberately ignore the stated law and binding precedent, the judge should be held accountable

judicial accountability

involves the ability of an entity to remove or discipline judges who do not perform their jobs in an acceptable manner

judicial disciplinary commission

a state-level commission that is usually made up of sitting or retired judges, lawyers, and laypersons and investigates complaints filed against judges; the commission can dismiss the complaint or admonish, censure, or remove the judge

judicial independence

entails ensuring that judges are free to decide cases fairly and impartially based on the facts and the law without consideration of public, political, financial, or other outside pressure

judicial performance evaluation

based on evaluations of how well a judge demonstrates a number of qualities expected of an excellent jurist submitted by individuals who have experience appearing before the judge; importantly, they focus exclusively on items related to the judge’s behavior and not to case outcomes

merit selection plans

when a judicial vacancy arises, a bipartisan, broad-based commission interviews and evaluates candidates for judicial positions and recommends three candidates to the governor; the governor is then required to appoint one of the people recommended by the commission

nonpartisan elections

process wherein judges are selected according to their own attributes rather than on the basis of their political connections; currently, more than a dozen states use nonpartisan elections as a means of judicial selection

partisan elections

candidates are selected by and affiliated with political parties

retention elections

judicial elections in which voters are asked whether the judge should be retained or not

senatorial courtesy

a process whereby the president defers to the wishes of a senator from the state where a vacancy is located in nominating a person for a district court judgeship