Laws and Customs

Washington, in the true populist tradition reflecting its heritage, has elected, non-partisan judges. At our recent Law Day celebration, the Supreme Court justice who spoke referred to it as a right we "would never surrender, and never exercise."

He was speaking more generally of the ignorance the voting public has of judicial candidates, but the quote was even truer than that, as is evidenced every time a judge retires. At least in our county, the judges never retire at a time that they could be replaced by an election. Thus, the governor must appoint a replacement.

There is an extensive vetting process through the governor's office, various attorney associations conduct panel discussions and make recommendations, and someone is chosen. None of the process is open to the public at large. At some point the new judge will have to run for re-election, but they will do so with the full weight of incumbency behind them. Since I have been practicing in the county, no one has upset a sitting judge or even run a serious campaign against one.

At the most recent judicial panel, someone raised the question of whether this practice was good or whether it thwarted the public participation that was intended to be part of the process. To my surprise, not a single candidate of four criticized it. They all spoke in favor of the current practices as weeding out unqualified candidates, as there is simply no way for the public to assess whether someone would be a good judge--the qualities that make for a good candidate are likely to be the opposite of those that would make for a good judge.

In the last round, the candidate that was chosen had already been serving as court commissioner for over a year. She'd been hired originally by the judges and the local bar had had ample chance to observe her in the courtroom and determine whether she reviewed her materials, kept up on the law, kept control of the courtroom, and rendered fair decisions. It was a good pick.

What is fascinating to me is how, in a time that is still strongly driven by the desire to rip out old inequities and replace customs with great systems of logic, yet customs grow up anyway. Logical systems are never quite enough to go on with.

The Fall of Arthur and other books

This was nice and short. I didn't realize that about two-thirds of the book was appendices and explanatory material which I do not feel obligated to read as they were not written in the twentieth century. I did enjoy the one explaining in a bit more detail the rules and history of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse that Tolkien employs. It's far more intricate than initially appears, and it creates a weighty style, all sharp edges and hard corners, that is excellent for epics and marvelously atmospheric.

Not on the list, but maybe I'll pretend it was if I don't get them all in, I read Phantastes by George MacDonald. I think I read it once as a teenager; it was well worth revisiting.

Completely not on the classics list, I'm reading The E*myth Enterprise in an effort to get my head around running the business side of the law practice, something that has become acutely necessary in the past few months. (I can make no sense of the title by the book, by the way, and it annoys me greatly and sounds very cheesy. Still, there are some good ideas in there.)

I'm thinking about ditching Swiss Family Robinson. We've completely gotten away from reading out loud, and I think the book is partly responsible. It's just too implausible and too preachy. Also, it's part of the literature assignments the kids either have or will get to at school, so I feel no urgency to read it. I'm not a quitter, but when a piece of the thing is blocking the whole thing from occurring, it's time to ditch the piece. I'm not sure what to choose next, though. Nothing has lived up to Lord of the Rings, unsurprisingly. I want to read The Sword in the Stone, but I'm thinking of doing a traditional Arthur telling first.

And for my next trick--I rolled a 9, so it will be The Scarlet Letter. I'm really looking forward to it.