Word: benching
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...bench is obviously the worst possible place to encounter that kind of prejudice. Nothing is so damaging to the stature of the judiciary as the common perception that punishment depends less on what a criminal did than on the biases or whims of the judge...
...core of public trust is the belief that judges are impartial. New York Lawyer Simon Rifkind, a former judge, notes: "Impartiality is an acquired taste, like olives. You have to be habituated to it." Some judges never lose the attitudes they brought to the bench; lawyers complain that judges who were prosecutors favor the state, and judges who were defense lawyers favor the defendant...
...with the methods and equipment of 1900," said Burger in 1970. He spoke from experience. When he came on the court in 1969, he asked to have some papers duplicated. The clerk had to explain to him that the Supreme Court Justices had no copying machine. Burger and other bench and bar leaders have pushed with some success for more efficient administration. "There was a day back when a judge said, "I'll start my court at 9 or 10 or 11 o'clock or whenever I want,' " Burger told TIME. "But that attitude won't work today." Still, judges...
...unfit federal judges, whether from outright corruption, political favoritism or inability due to ill health or senility, amount to a hidden national scandal," testified Clark Mollenhoff, a Pulitzer-prizewinning former Des Moines Register reporter, at a congressional hearing on methods of disciplining judges. (Mollenhoff has been investigating the federal bench for three years.) The only way to remove federal judges now is by impeachment, a cumbersome process. Only four of the nation's federal judges have been tried and convicted by Congress in the nation's history, none since 1936. Convicted of income tax evasion, perjury, bribery, conspiracy and mail...
...states have turned to so-called merit selection for at least some judges. Typically, a judicial "selection committee" nominates several names, the Governor picks one, and the judge runs unopposed on a yes-no "retention ballot" after a year or more. The system can produce a higher quality bench, if politics does not creep back in. "The big problem," says Stanford Law Professor Jack Friedenthal, "is the selection of the selectors...