For the most part, participating in \u201cjudgeship\u201d elections is pointless at best, if not outright pernicious. Your participation will be interpreted as granting your consent and approval to what amounts to a huge, unconstitutional scam.<\/p>\n
So far as I know, you can no longer become a judge in this country — with the possible exception of \u201cJustice in the Peace,\u201d restricted to handling minor misdemeanor matters in rural areas — unless you\u2019re a lawyer and \u201cofficer of the court\u201d who vows in advance to uphold unconstitutional drug and gun laws, et cetera.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean you \u201ccan\u2019t become a judge\u201d because no one would vote for you, which would be a bad enough indictment of the current popular understanding of \u201climited government.\u201d No, I mean you\u2019re not even allowed on the ballot (or, in “appointment-only” states, on the list of three finalists submitted to the governor.)<\/p>\n
Receive a pro tem appointment, announce you\u2019re not going to convict or even bother to try anyone for any unconstitutional \u201cdrug offenses,\u201d and see how fast your temporary appointment is revoked.<\/p>\n
Look up courageous attorney Marc Victor<\/a> of Arizona.<\/p>\n Campaign for a judgeship by promising to throw half the cases out of court? That\u2019s an \u201cethics violation\u201d! You could be \u201cremoved from the ballot.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s because judges are only supposed to enforce the laws, not make the laws,\u201d squawk the smug parrots of statism.<\/p>\n Actually, judges, like all other \u201cpublic officials,\u201d swear an oath not to \u201cenforce every enactment\u201d (which would be logistically impossible), nor to \u201ckowtow to the Bar Association,\u201d but rather to protect and defend the CONSTITUTION, which bars the other branches from enacting or enforcing any law which exceeds their limited powers specifically granted. Any judge honoring such an oath would have to<\/em> throw out the charges in the vast majority of cases now heard in our courts, explaining, \u201cI read the federal and relevant state Constitution again last night, and I can\u2019t find any authority for the federal or state government to \u2018license\u2019 or otherwise restrict anyone from growing or manufacturing or selling or possessing cocaine, opium, marijuana, or machine guns, generating all the carbon dioxide they please, traveling on the public roads, killing some endangered bug on their own property, what have you. As matter of fact, the First and Second and Ninth and Fourteenth amendments and parts of Article I, Section 8, actually bar<\/em> such laws. And no, my oath doesn\u2019t allow me to pretend<\/em> these laws are valid while we wait decades to see if some \u2018higher court\u2019 may find otherwise. Meantime, while I\u2019m at it, all jurors need to be told they have an undisputed power to judge the law as well as the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n It takes years of \u201ctraining\u201d in convoluted casuistry to blind an otherwise intelligent person to the ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to do that, which is why only \u201clawyers\u201d who have been checked out by the \u201cBar Association\u201d are even allowed to be considered<\/em> for judgeships, any more.<\/p>\n The purpose of all this rigmarole is to keep afloat a vast, unconstitutional police-and-prison-state.<\/p>\n Needless to say, this makes a mockery of the notion that \u201cYou voters chose these judges, so how can you complain?\u201d<\/p>\n But the notion that the people get to \u201cchoose their judges\u201d is often made even more absurd than that.<\/p>\n Nevadans, for example, think they elect their judges. But even in states with \u201cjudgeship elections\u201d (like Nevada), a whopping number of the black-robed politicians who give America the world\u2019s highest incarceration rate are political cronies, chosen not based on qualifications (other than being a lawyer) or wisdom or street smarts or even popularity but instead to fill cynical racial quotas by the sitting politician known as a \u201cgovernor\u201d or (in the case of Nevada\u2019s federal judges) by Harry Reid.<\/p>\n In other words, even though Nevada voters keep trooping to the polls and rejecting any change to a system of \u201cappointed judges,\u201d that\u2019s what they generally get, anyway.<\/p>\n The way this works is: When Nevada judges, who are mostly political animals, decide to retire, they rarely announce their retirements \u201cat the end of my current term,\u201d which would throw that bench open to a truly contested election with no incumbent. Instead, they retire mid-term, allowing the governor to appoint a replacement. (In exchange, the \u201cretiring\u201d judge is generally promised a lifetime sinecure sitting on the Supreme Court\u2019s paid \u201clibrary committee,\u201d or appointment as a \u201csenior judge\u201d who can keep getting paid to hear cases while never having to face the voters again.<\/p>\n At the very least, that particular plum used to be denied to judges who sought re-election and got defeated, the way Nancy Becker was thrown out on her ear by voters in 2006 for her role in the disgusting, discredited \u201cGuinn v. Legislature\u201d tax-hike ruling. So Nancy Becker couldn\u2019t possibly<\/em> have been appointed a Nevada \u201cSenior District Judge\u201d in 2012, right? Oh, wait . . .<\/p>\n Then, in a form of well organized protection racket, these newly appointed incumbents extort \u201ccampaign contributions\u201d from the firms of the lawyers who appear before them, who give the money in order to buy \u201cequal treatment\u201d by the bench, which means \u201cpreferred treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n (What I mean by that is, if you\u2019re a private individual representing yourself against the cops, and you\u2019re a few minutes late getting into court because the new Clark County courthouse was designed with inadequate elevators where you can wait in line for 20 minutes, and they call your name before you arrive, you\u2019re instantly found guilty in absentia. But if one of these lawyers who funds judgeship campaigns is late or has failed to file something on time, they keep sending the bailiffs out to look for that guy for hours. I\u2019ve documented this in the case of the Harry Pappas parking ticket.)<\/p>\n Instant \u2018incumbent\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n These appointed incumbents also line up endorsements from police unions, who are thus guaranteed none of their members will ever be convicted for, you know, shooting to death unarmed citizens who were kneeling in front yards with their hands on their heads, dribbling a basketball down the street, kneeling in front of the toilet trying to flush a small bag of marijuana, hideous crimes like that.<\/p>\n Why voters vote for judges who are endorsed by cops who are the very people those same voters are most likely to someday face in a \u201cmy-word-against-his\u201d situation in court, I don\u2019t have a clue. I guess it\u2019s true that voters tend to get the government they deserve.<\/p>\n (Oh, gee. Did my examples above sound hypothetical? Look up Orlando Barlow, killed with a .223 rifle by Officer Brian Hartman of Metro\u2019s \u201cBaby\u2019s Daddy Removal Team\u201d as Barlow knelt in a front yard with his hands on his head, surrounded by cops; or Ronald Perrin, killed while armed only with a basketball by officer Bruce Gentner. Look up Trevon Cole, killed by Metro Detective Bryan Yant as he knelt, unarmed, on his bathroom floor. Look up Charles Bush and Henry Rowe and Stanley Gibson. See https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=579<\/a> or https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=562<\/a>, just for starters.)<\/p>\n (Oh, wait. Did I seem indirect when I stated that some under-qualified judges, too dumb or timid to challenge the government\u2019s often ridiculous positions, were appointed primarily to fill racial quotas? I\u2019m sorry. I meant to name Johnnie Rawlinson on the federal bench, who has ruled the federal government \u201cowns\u201d 85 percent of Nevada because they acquired it in an 1848 treaty with Mexico, and Adriana Escobar of the Clark County District Court, for starters.)<\/p>\n The 2012 electoral contest for Clark County district judge in Department 14 was a good case in point.<\/p>\n Judge Donald Mosley, who came out against the hideous drug war but only upon his retirement (when it was too late to do any good, or cause him any trouble) quit the bench in the summer of 2012 so Gov. Brian Sandoval could appoint his replacement. Sandoval appointed Adriana Escobar, who could then campaign for \u201cre-election\u201d (a misnomer if there ever was one) as an \u201cincumbent,\u201d a few months later.<\/p>\n She was challenged by Mike Davidson, probably the best qualified judicial candidate to never be appointed to a judgeship by Brian Sandoval. (Hey, I’d<\/em> brag about it.)<\/p>\n Mind you, all my warnings about judgeship elections still apply. Michael Davidson would doubtless still have enforced all kinds of unconstitutional laws. I doubt I\u2019d even agree with most of the man\u2019s politics, him being a Democrat and all.<\/p>\n But Davidson did take a J.D. \u201cwith distinction\u201d at the University of Arizona in Tucson in 1978. He served as an assistant D.A. for Clark County from 1998 to 2003 under Stewart Bell, when the office was not yet a laughing stock. He then served as chief deputy D.A. (on the criminal side) for the city of North Las Vegas from 1998 to 2003, and is now a senior litigation partner for Kloesar and Leatham, which means he\u2019d be taking a pay cut to go to the bench at about $160,000.<\/p>\n Compare that — plus Mr. Davidson\u2019s other experience and that important but hard-to-quantify asset called \u201cdemeanor\u201d — to half the judges currently shuttling the cattle down the chute to prison on the Clark County bench.<\/p>\n