Word: vanderbilt
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...achieve and maintain this respect, Vanderbilt urges action on three fronts...
...19th century a change occurred that Vanderbilt ascribes to the Jacksonian revolution, with its premise that all men are not only created equal but remain equal throughout life. While Andrew Jackson, once a judge himself, conceded that judges needed special qualifications, his followers took a more liberal view: jurors, lawyers and judges, all being men, all were considered equal. As a result of this thesis, the trial judge in Maryland and Indiana to this day must instruct the jurors in criminal cases that they are judges not only of the facts but of the law. An outgrowth of the equalitarian...
...full effect of the Jacksonian idea was felt in 1846, when New York State switched to an elective judiciary-and paved the way for the reign of Boss Tweed. Other states followed suit, and as Judge Vanderbilt says, the "judges campaigned for judicial office in the hustings with the other candidates of the political parties from sheriff to hog reeve." Today all the judges of 36 states are elected political officers...
...Arthur Vanderbilt eloquently describes the qualities that judges should have: "Judges learned in the law, not merely the law in books but, something far more difficult to acquire, the law as applied in action in the courtroom; judges deeply versed in the mysteries of human nature and adept in the discovery of the truth in the discordant testimony of fallible human beings; judges beholden to no man, independent and honest and-equally important-believed by all men to be independent and honest; judges, above all, fired with consuming zeal to mete out justice according to law to every man, woman...
...Vanderbilt urges that formal standards be set up stating the necessary qualifications for judges and that candidates for judicial office be selected by bar and lay leaders, none of whom hold public office. A list of qualified men can be drawn up, and the executive or the legislature required to choose from that list. After being appointed, judges would run for election only against their records on the bench, i.e., no other candidates would appear on the ballots, which would be simply phrased: "Shall Judge Blank be retained in office?" This system has been recommended by the American Bar Association...