Seven Forms of Judicial Accountability

Just sharing an email from Zena Crensha, NFOJA Co-Adminstrator Perhaps a KEY thought to this email: National Forum On Judicial Accountability (NFOJA) is not on the frontlines of judicial elections -vs- merit selection debates. But NFOJA is one of very few groups suggesting that private citizens have a constitutional right to oversee state judicial disciplinary processes. It is our belief that the kind of citizen oversight that NFOJA proposes is among the rights reserved to the people by our U.S. Constitution.
If you like some of these thoughts, may want to consider joining this group??

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~eMail of 05/29/12
Kindly consider our chart setting out the seven (7) basic forms of or avenues to judicial accountability. These are the ways that judges may be held accountable for judicial acts.



As you can see, there is a cluster of people in the navy blue section for elections; the lime green section for discipline; and the grey section for academic review. These are the areas of judicial accountability that average Americans can or could substantially control.

Are you determined to keep or assert that control? Would you believe that many good government advocates do little to protect or enhance that control, even as they fight for increased judicial accountability?!?!?!

Of course, not all of us are part of academia. But we all should be very concerned that across America, the option of judicial elections is being quietly eliminated. To understand why average Americans should be outraged by that development, read Why Merit Selection of State Court Judges Lacks Merit by Matthew Schneider, Volume 56 Wayne L. Rev. 609 (2010)

National Forum On Judicial Accountability (NFOJA) is not on the frontlines of judicial elections -vs- merit selection debates. But NFOJA is one of very few groups suggesting that private citizens have a constitutional right to oversee state judicial disciplinary processes. It is our belief that the kind of citizen oversight that NFOJA proposes is among the rights reserved to the people by our U.S. Constitution.

Imagine the impact of judges knowing their conduct on the bench may be evaluated by trained, randomly selected private citizens as opposed to judicial colleagues or other institutional actors or even hand-picked private citizens. Such is the goal of NFOJA’s proposed “Citizen Panels On Judicial Misconduct Act”. Such appears to be the mandate of our U.S. Constitution’s Tenth Amendment and the rights it reserves to We the People.

You may not do most of your activism through NFOJA, but please encourage others to join; become an active part of our online networks; and consider becoming an active NFOJA member.

Thank you.

Zena Crenshaw-Logal and
Dr. Andrew D. Jackson
NFOJA Co-Adminstrators
http://50states.ning.com/
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Related Reading:

• You Can Control Judges 

From our NFPCAR Web Site

• Other Links on Judges
• Judges' Bench Guide
• Search Information on our Site

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