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Need for reform in judicial diversity
Need for reform in judicial diversity
Need for reform in judicial diversity
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Strengths and Weaknesses of Nevada's System for Electing Judges Compared to the Merit Plan The Merit Plan, which is also known as the Missouri Plan, has been fenced by controversy since it was first came into play. The controversy about this plan is over the effects, disadvantages and advantages of the merit plans on the quality of the judiciary. Time has not silenced the debate. Other issues have surfaced in response to political, legal and operational factors. Advocates of the merit selection offer the plan as an alternative to the politics and fundraising in judicial elections, but the opposition believe that the appointive process itself is political, and that citizens have a right to elect their judges. Despite the doubts about the merit selection's success in removing politics from judicial selection, the merit plan has managed to gain approval. There are numerous arguments that have been brought up in favor of merit …show more content…
From this point of view, it is very naive to suggest, as some of the merit plan's followers do, that the plan takes the politics out of judicial selection. The merit plan is designed to put forth on the process of selecting judges, a variety of interests, that are considered to have a genuine concern in the matter and to depress other interests. Also, while the amount of studies and accessible information, regarding minority judges being elected, continues to add up, it still might be too soon to reach a conclusion regarding which selection process truly improves diversity. However, the merit selection is not a complication for diversity. When the merit plan is tied with the requirements that nominating commissions take diversity on the bench into account, when making their nominations, there is a far larger number of minority and women judges that will take the
The strategic model acknowledges that judges seek to achieve policy goals, but it also acknowledges that they are subject to certain restrictions in doing so. Since they cannot act accordingly to preference, they must act strategically to achieve their goals given by the restrictions. It argues that like politicians, justices make their decisions based off other’s decisions or make their decisions while trying to determine how another person will react from it. This decision style says justices would base their decisions on the influence of other justices.
In America’s time there have been many great men who have spent their lives creating this great country. Men such as George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson fit these roles. They are deemed America’s “founding fathers” and laid the support for the most powerful country in history. However, one more man deserves his name to be etched into this list. His name was John Marshall, who decided case after case during his role as Chief Justice that has left an everlasting mark on today’s judiciary, and even society itself. Through Cases such as Marbury v. Madison (1803) and McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) he established the Judicial Branch as an independent power. One case in particular, named Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), displayed his intuitive ability to maintain a balance of power, suppress rising sectionalism, and unite the states under the Federal Government.
Gevinson, A. (2009, July 28). Supreme Court Nominations | Teachinghistory.org. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/22435
John Marshall, Supreme Court Justice, created legal precedence in the historical case, Marbury v. Madison in 1803. Throughout history he is portrayed as the fountainhead of judicial review. Marshall asserted the right of the judicial branch of government to void legislation it deemed unconstitutional, (Lemieux, 2003). In this essay, I will describe the factual circumstances and the Supreme Court holdings explaining the reasoning behind Chief Justice Marshall’s conclusions in the case, Marbury v. Madison. Furthermore, I will evaluate whether the doctrine of judicial review is consistent with the Constitution and analysis the positive effects of the doctrine in American politics.
Despite the efforts of lawyers and judges to eliminate racial discrimination in the courts, does racial bias play a part in today’s jury selection? Positive steps have been taken in past court cases to ensure fair and unbiased juries. Unfortunately, a popular strategy among lawyers is to incorporate racial bias without directing attention to their actions. They are taught to look for the unseen and to notice the unnoticed. The Supreme Court in its precedent setting decision on the case of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), is the first step to limiting racial discrimination in the court room. The process of selecting jurors begins with prospective jurors being brought into the courtroom, then separating them into smaller groups to be seated in the jury box. The judge and or attorneys ask questions with intent to determine if any juror is biased or cannot deal with the issues fairly. The question process is referred to as voir dire, a French word meaning, “to see to speak”. During voir dire, attorneys have the right to excuse a juror in peremptory challenges. Peremptory challenges are based on the potential juror admitting bias, acquaintanceship with one of the parties, personal knowledge of the facts, or the attorney believing he/she might not be impartial. In the case of Batson v. Kentucky, James Batson, a black man, was indicted for second-degree burglary and receipt of stolen goods. During the selection of the jury the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike out all of the four black potential jurors, leaving an all white jury. Batson’s attorney moved to discharge the venire, the list from which jurors may be selected, on the grounds that the prosecutor’s peremptory challenges violated his client’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to have a jury derived from a “cross-section of the community”(People v. Wheeler, 583 P.3d 748 [Calif. 1978]). The circuit court ruled in favor of the prosecutor and convicted Batson on both counts. This case went through the courts and finalized in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jost, Kenneth. "The Federal Judiciary." CQ Researcher 8.10 (1998). CQ Researcher. SAGE Publications. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .
Over the past 15 years tremendous awareness has been raised around this and programs of preferential treatment emerged. These programs ensured equal rights for people of color and females in the work place, allowing for them to apply for executive level positions and earn the same amount of money, benefits, and prestige as a white male ensuring equality for all race and sex. Lisa Newton argues that, “reverse discrimination does not advance but actually undermines equality because it violates the concept of equal justice under law for all citizens. In addition, to this theoretical objection to reverse discrimination, Newton opposes it because she believes it raises insoluble problems.” Among them are determining what groups have been sufficiently discriminated against in the past to deserve preferred treatment in the present and determining the degree of reverse discrimination that will be compensatory. Newton outlines the importance of ensuring her argument is recognized as logically distinct from the condition of justice in the political sense. She begins her argument for reverse discrimination as unjustified by addressing the “simple justice” claim requiring that we favor women and blacks in employment and education opportunities. Since women and blacks were unjustly excluded from such opportunities for so many years in the not so distant past, however when employers and schools favor women and blacks, the same injustice is done. This reverse discrimination violates the public equality which defines citizenship and destroys the rule of law for the areas in which these favors are granted. To the extent that we adopt a program of discrimination, reverse or otherwise, justice in the political sense is destroyed, and none of us, specifically affected or no is a citizen, as bearers of rights we are all petitioners
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Chief Justice John Marshall affected the American Judicial System. The reader will therefore first find a brief biography of John Marshall. Then the paper will explain in detail the origins of the Judicial Power to subsequently...
... I believe the inconsistent nature of the selection process and the lack of a clearly defined procedure for the selection of candidates, led to the court’s decision that some classes of candidates were treated unfairly. Employers and government agencies alike should utilize legal services to ensure that hiring and testing processes are equitable and legal. The Lewis v. City of Chicago case was found in favor of the plaintiffs that may have been an oversight in which the city simply desired to create a manageable hiring list. Illegal classifications and hiring projection errors created a case where a class action group was victims of disparate treatment.
Remy, Richard C., Gary E. Clayton, and John J. Patrick. "Supreme Court Cases." Civics Today. Columbus, Ohio: Glencoe, 2008. 796. Print.
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
Torres-Spelliscy et al. (2010) encouraged diversity in the American court system and provided ten practices to attract the brightest female and minority candidates for the judiciary, and they are as follows: (1) grapple fully with implicit bias; (2) increase strategic recruitment; (3) be clear about the role of diversity in the nominating process in state statutes; (4) keep the application and interviewing process transparent; (5) train commissioners to be effective recruiters and nominators; (6) appoint a diversity compliance officer or ombudsman; (7) create diverse commissions by statute; (8) maintain high standards and quality; (9) raise judicial salaries; (10) improve record keeping (p. 3). Appointing minorities and females to the U.S. bench will increase public confidence, and it will also bring important value towards the representation of women and ethnic
The Supreme Court's ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger and in Gratz v. Bollinger are two compelling and complex cases. In the Grutter v. Bollinger case, the Supreme court favored that race and ethnicity along with other factors are justifiable in the admission process of promoting a diverse and inclusive student body on the premises of state law schools. I agree with the court's decision because minorities only make up a small percentage on college campuses and universities, and that race and ethnicity does play a crucial role in recruiting students of colors from various cultural backgrounds. Students must be trained scholars who know how to interact with people from all walks of life and they must be able to adapt and understand different people in different environments in a given context. The goal is for everyone
The significant impact Robert Dahl’s article, “Decision-Making in a Democracy: the Supreme Court as a National Policy-Maker” created for our thought on the Supreme Court it that it thoroughly paved the way towards exemplifying the relationship between public opinion and the United States Supreme Court. Dahl significantly was able to provide linkages between the Supreme Court and the environment that surrounds it in order for others to better understand the fundamental aspects that link the two together and explore possible reasoning and potential outcomes of the Court.
The given statement suggests that the emphasis on judicial diversity is unnecessary since there is no guarantee that a diverse judiciary would arrive at a different decision than that of a conservative judiciary. This essay attempts to argue that although there is no evidence that a diverse bench would radically change the outcome of a given case, the quality of justice will be substantially enhanced by the inclusion of a range of perspectives from which are currently not represented by the English judiciary.