Supreme Court Elections
I applaud your paper’s (inevitably unpopular) stance. I also have reservations about Chief Justice Bird; however, as a lawyer, I have very strong feelings about the need for a genuinely independent judiciary--whether at the trial level or the Supreme Court level--and the focus of the current Supreme Court “campaign” and the rhetoric it has generated have missed the point entirely.
If the separation of powers is going to mean anything, it must include the right of judges to make unpopular decisions, free from the pressures of politics, and the ability to take the long view of things. I suppose the closest analogy is the type of business management that emphasizes short-term profit as contrasted with that which looks at the long-term.
Thank you for bringing intelligence and sensibility into the current rhetoric. I hope someone out there is still listening.
JOSEPH M. MILLER
Los Angeles
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