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Foreword, R. Lawrence Dessem
Foreword, R. Lawrence Dessem
Missouri Law Review
It is my great pleasure to introduce the Missouri Law Review's 2009 symposium: "Mulling Over the Missouri Plan: A Review of State Judicial Selection and Retention Systems." This has been a labor of love by the entire staff of the Missouri Law Review, and both the February 27 symposium and the written symposium that follows are a work product that should serve as a touchstone for scholars, policy-makers, and all members of the public who are interested in state judicial selection and retention systems and the current efforts to amend and extend those systems.
Reconciling The Judicial Ideal And The Democratic Impulse In Judicial Retention Elections, Rachel Paine Caufield
Reconciling The Judicial Ideal And The Democratic Impulse In Judicial Retention Elections, Rachel Paine Caufield
Missouri Law Review
It is hardly novel to suggest that judicial elections, including retention elections, illustrate profound and irreconcilable tensions in the American governmental scheme. The guiding political philosophy of liberal democracy dictates that judges be insulated from popular will and therefore remain free to adhere to the law, regardless of how unpopular such adherence may be. Complete independence would permit judges to be reckless in their use of the law as a tool of power. Complete accountability would render the rule of law, and the protections it affords to political minorities and others who lack political power, nonexistent. This elusive ideal of …