'Nuts' to electing judges
The Charlotte Observer adds its own example of why "it's nuts to elect District Court judges in North Carolina":
"In Mecklenburg County, a wealthy man who has never practiced law but who got angry over his divorce – in which a judge awarded his ex-wife a little more than half their joint estate – just got elected to the bench. The man he ousted? The judge in his divorce case."
That's no more nuts than the election in Guilford County of a lawyer whose work as a defense attorney was so lacking that she's no longer allowed to represent indigent clients in criminal cases.
Voters didn't make that magnitude of mistake in statewide judicial races yesterday, but it's probably only a matter of time.
It was a little too close for comfort as it was. Jim Wynn, possibly the best judge on the N.C. Court of Appeals, won with only 54 percent against Greensboro attorney Jewel Farlow, who had virtually no support from the legal community and didn't seem to do any campaigning.
I can only conclude that most people vote randomly in judicial races, but some probably vote on the basis of gender or other irrelevant factors.
The only good news is there's a huge dropoff in voting for judicial races. If people don't have a clue about the candidates, they shouldn't vote in ignorance.
Too many do, anyway. Voting for judges is very precarious. If we can't come up with a better system, we should at least move judicial elections away from presidential years.
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