Why Numerous American JUDGES Favor The Supremely Neutral Italian Kind Of System



See that above at the bottom of the YouTube screen? Some $280 million has been spent since the year 2000.

Can you guess what the $280 million was for?

In fact the $280 million is funds raised and spent for judges’ election campaigns in the roughly 3/4 of all American states where such judges’ elections are held - the original intention of which was good: to get judicial choices out of smoke-filled rooms.

Sitting judges and prospective judges themselves usually dont like this fundraising, because they have to take time off to raise these funds,  and pressures from donors - including bad-boy donors and in some cases defense lawyers seeking a break - can become extreme.

We have posted previously on enlightened American lawyers favoring main aspects of the Italian kind of system and on American cities now doing the same. Now we see many American judges and public-interest groups inclining the same way.

Why all judges in Italy are impartial and well-trained in the extreme (like all prosecutors) and dont have to keep their paws outstretched is that they are in a merit-based system where only their performance and not their politics counts.

We described how Italian justice system officials have to jump hurdle after hurdle in getting their cases advanced. A very demanding process in which only the best succeed.

It’s the same with their careers. They have to jump hurdle after hurdle in exams and peer assessment to advance from level to level - to make it as high for example as this revered prosecutor here.

Do such serial defamers of the Italian system as Doug Preston and Steve Moore and ex-judge Michael Heavey bother to tell you this about the Italian system? Probably not. They have never been truthful about it before.


Comments

A system problem. Nobody here sets out to be bad people. Those groups are not breaking any present laws and judges on the whole are well-meaning.

But US justice does have its system problems, as does the economy and social infrastructure. There are always some in process of being rolled back, but getting courts back to neutral could take a while.

The Italian system also has its system problems, we cannot deny that, in fact we posted on it only recently.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/italian_prime_minister_renzi_will_push_measures_to_speed_up_justice/

But the Italian system is unusual, highly rational because it emerged as a reaction to the Mussolini-era excesses and once tilted reasonably toward fairness.

But one that special interests (read mafia and politicians on the take or helping business buddies on the take) have managed to tilt away from fairness, creating something of a a hell for victims and families.

Still, the statistics on incarceration and repeat offending (recidivism) remain incredible: each only about 1/7 of the rates in the United States.

US legal observers are right to be learning from it, and ignoring the cancer of the Knox campaign. And a statistic Doug Preston and Steve Moore and ex-judge Michael Heavey will never quote you:

OVER ONE HUNDRED Italian prosecutors and judges have been assassinated - trying to ensure a fair deal for victims.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 10/31/14 at 05:41 PM | #

At least they can’t get away with their lies about the Italian system of justice any more, Peter.

And any media that regurgitates their PR, ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Posted by Ergon on 10/31/14 at 06:37 PM | #
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