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Full-Text Articles in Law
Packing And Unpacking State Courts, Marin K. Levy
Packing And Unpacking State Courts, Marin K. Levy
Faculty Scholarship
When it comes to court packing, questions of “should” and “can” are inextricably intertwined. The conventional wisdom has long been that federal court packing is something the President and Congress simply cannot do. Even though the Constitution’s text does not directly prohibit expanding or contracting the size of courts for political gain, many have argued that there is a longstanding norm against doing so, stemming from a commitment to judicial independence and separation of powers. And so (the argument goes), even though the political branches might otherwise be tempted to add or subtract seats to change the Court’s ideological makeup, …
The Law And Policy Of Judicial Retirement, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner
The Law And Policy Of Judicial Retirement, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner
Faculty Scholarship
Lifetime tenure maximizes judicial independence by shielding judges from political pressures, but it creates problems of its own. As is widely known, judges with judicial independence may implement their political preferences or shirk in other ways. Less attention has been given to another problem: that judges will remain in office after their abilities degrade as a result of old age. The U.S. federal system addresses these problems in an indirect way. When judges’ pensions vest, they receive a full salary regardless of whether they work or not; thus, the effective compensation for judicial work falls to zero. Judges can retire, …
Public Funding Of Judicial Campaigns: The North Carolina Experience And The Activism Of The Supreme Court, Paul D. Carrington
Public Funding Of Judicial Campaigns: The North Carolina Experience And The Activism Of The Supreme Court, Paul D. Carrington
Faculty Scholarship
In recent years, the problem of selecting judges to sit on the highest state courts has become a national crisis. North Carolina remains among the states whose constitutions require competitive elections of all its judges. Presently, all candidates for its judicial offices must first compete for election in a non-partisan primary, a system motivated by the desire to maximize the power of the state’s citizen-voters to choose their judges and hold them accountable for their fidelity to the law. Some observers have continued to celebrate such judicial elections as an honorable democratic empowerment, while others have not. The disagreement has …
Original Sin And Judicial Independence: Providing Accountability For Justices, Paul D. Carrington, Roger C. Cramton
Original Sin And Judicial Independence: Providing Accountability For Justices, Paul D. Carrington, Roger C. Cramton
Faculty Scholarship
The independence of the judiciary is an enduring and defining objective of the legal profession. Law depends on judges to observe and enforce it. To secure such virtuous judges, they must be protected from retaliation by those who disapprove their decisions and prevented from receiving rewards from those who benefit by them. Those having the greatest stake in shielding judges from intimidation or reward are the profession that shares their dependence on public acceptance and respect. And that task of protecting judicial independence stands today at the very top of the agenda of the American legal profession.