There is some horrible conduct detailed on here, but also not so horrible conduct:
> They included a California judge who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his former law intern and separately with an attorney; a New York judge who berated domestic violence victims; and a Maryland judge who, after his arrest for driving drunk, was allowed to return to the bench provided he took a Breathalyzer test before each appearance.
Judges in all these states are elected. Should an elected official be impeached for any of this conduct? Maybe the one who had sex with an attorney, if the attorney had cases before the judge (but the article doesn’t say that). The other stuff is bad, but is it impeachable?
By lumping together really heinous conduct with things that probably should be disciplinary violations that don’t result in impeachment, it’s hard to know what the magnitude of the problem detailed in the article actually is.
I think people are leaning further and further into retribution instead of rehabilitation. People make mistakes and we need to realize that unless the mistake is really heinous then we don't need to absolutely destroy their entire lives. We just need them to learn from the mistake, possibly pay a cost (therapy, fines, temporary unpaid leave, etc), and then rejoin society as social and economic contributors.
I'd rather not pass individual judgement on these cases presented but it seems to me that some of these are more damning than others.
I like the way the ancient greeks did it. Every year we write a name of the person that we want removed from public office. The person with the most votes gets banished for 10 years.
> They included a California judge who had sex in his courthouse chambers, once with his former law intern and separately with an attorney; a New York judge who berated domestic violence victims; and a Maryland judge who, after his arrest for driving drunk, was allowed to return to the bench provided he took a Breathalyzer test before each appearance.
Judges in all these states are elected. Should an elected official be impeached for any of this conduct? Maybe the one who had sex with an attorney, if the attorney had cases before the judge (but the article doesn’t say that). The other stuff is bad, but is it impeachable?
By lumping together really heinous conduct with things that probably should be disciplinary violations that don’t result in impeachment, it’s hard to know what the magnitude of the problem detailed in the article actually is.