I write this blog article with confidence that it will prevent me from ever again being called up for jury duty or serving on a jury. (Judges have the power to strike a name from the rolls.)

Today the Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago judges routinely violate an IL law that prohibits any speeder from receiving more than two “court supervisions” in a year: “Thousands of times a year, judges in the Chicago area sentence speeders to extra, illegal supervisions. The newspaper's analysis showed that in the six-county metro area, the law is ignored about 11 times each day court. . . .” And this includes chronic speeders who kill people with their cars.

Sidebar: In case you don’t know what a “supervision” is in traffic court, it’s nothing. The judge makes you pay the ticket, forces you to watch a video, and then waves bye-bye.

Monday the U. S. Supreme Court overturned a life-without-parole sentence for a Florida juvenile (Graham v Florida) who had committed non-homicide offenses for which an adult could have been sentenced to as little as 5 years, at the circuit-court judge’s discretion. That’s right; if he had been 21 and the judge liked the way he looked, the judge could have sentenced to him five years.

Clearly, Florida legislators are crafting sentencing guidelines that are far, far too broad; this puts too much discretion into the hands of judges.

In the trial in which I was a juror, the judge literally rewrote the IL kidnapping statute in the jury instructions. Fortunately, several of us on the jury could read, and she didn’t write very well. The only check on judges who misstate the law to the jury, however, is the lengthy, costly appellate system.

The U. S. Constitution calls for an independent judiciary. Unfortunately, the Constitution also grants the Executive branch of government the power to appoint many judges (which necessarily makes them “dependent” on the evaluation of a political group). It also allows the States to establish their own means of creating a judiciary, and most States elect all judges except for their own appointed Supreme Court justices.

Elections mean the judges are party hacks. The political parties put only the judges in their pockets onto the ballots. No judge who lacks a party affiliation will ever appear on a ballot, at least not in Cook County.

Sidebar: I don’t see any harm in the President nominating Justices for the Supreme Court and the Senate confirming them. Throughout history, the Justices have exhibited political independence once on the Court and have often surprised the Presidents who chose them.

Hire Judges

In Cook County each primary and election ballot includes dozens of judicial candidates. Despite local bar association ratings, most voters have no clue about these names. Such an election is nothing but a farce.

• Cook County Bar Association: http://www.thecookcountybar.org/pdf/CCBA2010PrimaryElectionRatings.pdf 
• Chicago Bar Association: http://www.chicagobar.org/AM/Template.cfm 

Most communities hire the Chief of Police, police officers, medical examiners, corporate attorneys, and other legal professionals. We ought to start hiring judges and prosecutors, too. That way, when the community’s political leaders change, its professional prosecutors and judges can change, too. The hiring process should rely on credentials so that when community leaders hire incompetent, political hacks, they can be fired or, if not, the leaders will soon be out of a job, too.