Crank wrote:
Firing judges who make poor decisions, or simply decisions with which you disagree is a horrible movement and is an affront to our entire system of justice. If you don't believe me, take it from one of the finest legal minds in the world, Erwin Chemerinsky:
I don't think that's a valid comparison.
The judge was voted in by election, and the attempt to remove is by a ballot measure. The judge serves at the pleasure of the electorate. By law. I agree that the electorate could have just waited until the next election, though. But other elected positions are recalled. (e.g. in California here we had a governor recalled by the electorate.) I'm not sure how to make judges, alone, off-limits. Also, I'm not a "legal mind" of any kind, much less a fine one, but the prosecutor in the case claimed he had no basis to make an appeal of the sentence, so that doesn't quite jibe with Erwin's claim that appeal would have been the right way to challenge the decision.
The Rep. Dush issue is different in two ways. First, he's proposing the legislature remove the judge. That would be a branch government acting against another branch of government. The violates the whole principle of separation of powers. The judge does not serve at the pleasure of the legislature. The justice is supposed to be independent from the legislature.
Second the legislature would be performing the removal in direct response to a decision *about* the legislature. So it's a blatant conflict-of-interest. Unlike the Brock case where no one signing the recall petition would be personally affected one way or the other. (Presumably Brock didn't sign it. :) )