How a Reviled Court System Has Outlasted Critics - Broken Bench (part 3)

[WePurrsevere]

Although this report series is centers around NY's justice system NY is one of 30 states that still use this antiquated system of justice. Is your state one of them?

If you have not read part one please do so. The the cited cases of small town injustice are mind boggling to lovers of true American justice.
NYT's - Part One here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/nyregion/25courts.html
(Previous DU thread here: http://tinyurl.com/hk5w5) - (there's a link to state by state justice system info)

NYT's Part Two here: http://tinyurl.com/genz8
DU Part 2 thread here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2232328

NYT's link to Part 3 (How a Reviled Court System Has Outlasted Critics)here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/nyregion/27courts.html?pagewanted=all

Their language has often been blistering, and their point has been the same: These courts, with their often primitive trappings and amateur judges, are an anachronism that desperately needs to be overhauled or discarded.

Although they are key institutions of justice in more than 1,000 small towns and suburbs across New York, trying misdemeanor cases and lawsuits, a vast majority of the justices who run them are not lawyers, and receive only a few days’ legal training. The justices are often elected in low-turnout races, keep few records and operate largely without supervision — leaving a long trail of injustices and mangled rulings.

Yet these justice courts, as they are known, remain essentially as they were when New Yorkers started complaining nearly a century ago. In recent weeks, state officials have decided to take some steps to increase training, supervision and record-keeping. But the cries for any sweeping change have all but died out over the last few decades, even as the abuses have continued.

One way to understand why a much-criticized institution has come to seem so entrenched is to revisit three big battles over the justice courts. In each, the people seeking to change the system tried in a different arena: the Legislature, the voting booths and the higher courts. And each time, their defeat was so stinging that it effectively killed any further discussion there: (more at the above link)

[mainegreen]

1. My god, I am NEVER moving to New York.

What an ignorant system.

[WePurrsevere]

2. Do the local judges have to be lawyers? Are they appointed? I'd like to

know how states that do not vote in their local judges managed to change the system.

This whole issue seems against everything I feel the spirit of our nations Bill Of Rights and Constitution represent. I love NY and there is so much good about it but like every state there is work to e done in some areas... this is one of our big ones. NY has tried and hasn't been able to change this system yet but as "upstate" turns more and more blue I think the chances are increasingly better for this kind of change.

[Eric J in MN]

3. No, they don't have to be lawyers. NT

NT

[Kagemusha]

4. They're ELECTED, that's why it's so hard to lay a glove on them

I read the whole thing online when the NYT put it up. Oh there was this one part about.. a judge who once had roadblocks set up stopping drivers and 'fining' them for whatever cash they were carrying at the time.

I may lean Democratic, but the little Libertarian in me was screaming, "FINING!?!?!?"

That's the sort of thing that makes your conservative economics type say, see? Fines and taxes are exactly the same as highway robbery! Or city street robbery.