Elite lawyers blamed elective judiciaries for corrupt and ignorant judges

Evidence

Many judges always insisted that only law-​trained people had the skill and the knowledge to decide cases. They also argued that the only tools that belonged in the toolshed of judges were strictly legal tools. If the public elected judges, didn’t that mean that people had the right—​and the power—​to judge the judges, and judge their decisions as well? And wouldn’t jurists be replaced by political hacks? An editor of the Albany Law Journal, writing in 1873, called the defeat of Chief Justice Lawrence a case where “a herd of dissatisfied farmers have put an ignorant demagogue in the seat of an able and upright judge.” In 1873, there was an attempt to get rid of the elective principle in New York; it was thought, not unreasonably, that the elective principle was a factor in the extreme corruption of the lower New York courts, in the days of the Tweed ring. But the state voted to keep the elective principle, to the dismay of the elites of the New York bar. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2172

Categorization

• XREF: The appointment-versus-election fight over judicial independence connects to the reader’s LGST 1110 core question of how legal institutions balance accountability and neutrality. — connects to: Colonial elite lawyers resented amateur competitors for fees and status — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 551

Broader Connections

• Colonial elite lawyers resented amateur competitors for fees and status #expands (0.82) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 551