when a government is run by a bunch of crackers intent on keeping life in the past where everyone knew their place and stayed there.

the gov't of mississippi is owned and run by the old plantation owners, who hire the crackers to do their dirty work for them. really, the only difference from before the civil war is that slavery has technically been outlawed.

i believe ny state has a similar system in place, the nyt's did a series on it not too long ago. while their's has qualifications similar to mississippi, i believe they also require that you be able to speak a version of english the rest of us can understand, without a translator present.

New Jersey, OTOH, requires -per its constitution -all persons exercising judicial offices (including local judges) to be lawyers and requires trial court judges to have been admitted for at least 10 years.

The core problem is not necessarily in having "untrained" people being judges - they can learn the law (and had better be able to: if the law is too complicated for the average person to understand, it should not be the law) and apply it.  Rather, the expansion of collateral consequences from proceedings in low-level courts is a real bugaboo.

The law does not belong to the lawyers.

The law DOES NOT belong to the lawyers.

The law belongs to the people.

When the law can no longer be understood by the people, either the people need to be educated or the law needs to be fixed.

Career Justice Department lawyers can carry out the trial prep and details. But answer me how many cases you would win against Angeline Jolie or Brad Pitt?

How many lawyers claim to be strict constructionists? How many of those are actually able to read? "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Which rights does that specifically protect? How many are enforced by the lawyers? None.

washington, while lacking the formal academic credentials of jefferson & madison, was extremely well read, and did have some formal education. he was no dummy. having been raised in the va aristocracy, he considered himself, and was accepted by his class, as a well bred gentleman.

his letters make clear that his lack of a college degree didn't hinder his understanding of the consequences of all the activities he was involved in.

while i don't always agree with the laws we have, i feel reasonably confident that the worst will be struck down by the courts, that whole "checks and balances" thing. further, the most egregiously incompetent of our representatives will eventually disgust even their supporters, and be turned out of office.

it isn't a perfect system, possibly the worst, except for, as the man said, "every other one".

lawyers, as a group, are no less ethically challenged than any other profession, in my experience. i work with a lot of attorneys and cpa's. both groups have that small % of scuzzbags, it's the way of the world.

  I really don't have a problem with lay judges deciding small civil claims or petty offenses. Most of these cases do not require much in the way of technical legal knowledge and common sense and a sense of fairness are usually more important than legal training. So long as prompt and meaningfukl review in a higher court is available and a  stay and/or appeal bond is available pending review, relatively little harm is caused even if a lay judge makes a legal error that is critical to the outcome of the case. Balancing that relatively small and infrequent harm against the benefits of less expensive, less formal and quicker resolution, a case can be made for having lay judges.

  That is not the case with respect to search and arrest warrants. I have huge problems with allowing lay judges to issue orders allwing people to be arrested and incarcerated or have their privacy invaded under color of law. Great harm can flow from misunderstanding or inattention to the complexities of laws and constitutional protections related to search and seizure and arrest and it cannot be "corrected" by later review.