Should Judges be executed for getting it wrong? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#13096144
Man jailed for not supporting someone else's child

ADEL, Ga. – A Georgia man spent more than a year behind bars for failing to pay child support for a child that wasn't his, but he was released after DNA tests showed he wasn't the father.

Frank Hatley, 50, had been jailed since June 2008 for not making payments, but two separate DNA tests in the last nine years showed he was not the father of the boy, who is now 21.

Southern Center for Human Rights attorney Sarah Geraghty won Hatley's release at a hearing Wednesday in Superior Court. A court order has also relieved him of his financial obligation to the Georgia Department of Human Resources.

"State child support officials have shown extraordinarily poor judgment in Mr. Hatley's case," Geraghty said.

Although Hatley was freed from making future payments after a 2001 hearing, Superior Court Judge Dan Perkins had ordered him to continue making $16,000 in back payments. He paid $6,000 of that before being laid off from his job.

Perkins ordered Hatley's immediate release Wednesday after determining that he was indigent. Although he was released, Hatley's paternity case is still unresolved. No future hearings are scheduled.
User avatar
By Ryan Owens
#13096159
Never. We should just outlaw the death penalty and that'd solve this entire thing without pointless death. Besides, it's not the judges fault- remember, capital offenses are tried before a jury. So maybe the whole jury who got it wrong should be executed.
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By Dave
#13096165
Did you read the OP at all?

Regarding the OP, in cases of particularly outrageous corruption, such as when a judge was found to be on the take from a private prison company to sentence children to prison, then I think execution would be appropriate.

For more minor (but still severe) cases like this, there needs to be accountability but I don't think we need to go so far as to execute the judge. I certainly would not fault Hatley if he were to kill the judge himself, though.
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By Ryan Owens
#13096189
Yeah, I read it. And I made my opinion on state killings at all known and that would tell you my opinion on executing judges, wouldn't it? Did you even think before writing that post?
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By Dave
#13096193
Implicit in your post was that someone had been wrongfully convicted in a capital case, an impression given by your statement,
Ryan Owens wrote:Besides, it's not the judges fault- remember, capital offenses are tried before a jury. So maybe the whole jury who got it wrong should be executed.


The article in the OP did not refer to a capital case nor was any jury involved, which made it seem as if you did not read the OP.
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By Ryan Owens
#13096195
That's a secondary, after-thought point. I'm saying that if a Judge can be executed for, as the title reads, "getting it wrong" so too should those who are on jury duty and are more likely to be swayed by pre-disposition and discriminatory beliefs than the laws of the state than a judge would be.
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By dudekebm
#13096240
I think it's more of an issue of family court judges need to learn to be truly objective. Oftentimes, in custody / child support hearings for divorce you'll end up with erroneous judgements that are just ruled on based on bias towards one parent, most often the mother (e.g. my better-half has a friend at work whose son is still trying to fight to get custody of his child even though the drug addict mother has been awarded by the court sole custody and even has agreed to an increase in child support payments) or frankly just ruling on expediency (i.e. get the trial over with and on to the next case on the agenda for the judge). Personally if I were this guy I'd get the organization who is supporting him in this case to push the paternity suit through to get it over with and get this 'debt' cleared from his record.
By humanrights
#13096508
There ought to be justice for judges. They are protected. Even the Judicial Conduct Committee only finds against the stuff like drunken judging. Any horrible decision is dismissed as "A difference of opinion."

I think that judges should be held MORE accountable than the people they are judging. Let's stop babying government officials! Government ain't NO baby!
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By Figlio di Moros
#13099444
humanrights wrote:There ought to be justice for judges. They are protected. Even the Judicial Conduct Committee only finds against the stuff like drunken judging. Any horrible decision is dismissed as "A difference of opinion."


Agreed, judges should be held accountable for terrible decisions they make.
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By Godstud
#13099505
If Judges are actually elected then their decisions tend to be more in line with the public's views on law and can be ousted if they make poor decisions.
Judges should be accountable but still be given some protection from honest mistakes.
By humanrights
#13099842
If Judges are actually elected then their decisions tend to be more in line with the public's views on law and can be ousted if they make poor decisions.

Judges should be accountable but still be given some protection from honest mistakes.


Would you rather innocent people be sent to jail for honest mistakes?

In two recent small claims cases, I know judges and clerks that made disnonest mistakes and still inflicted pain. Whether they were interpreting betrayal caused blinking as lies or giving me bad legal advice, they still made mistakes that cost me money, time and effort.

What I learned was:
1) to NEVER tell the adversary in a small claim trial ANYTHING before the trial,
2) that most people lie in court and
3) that judges don't know what they are doing even/especially in their own profession.
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By Godstud
#13099937
Mistakes are going to happen and better an honest mistake than one through corruption.
There is no perfect system until someone can find a foolproof way to detect lies.

What I learned was:
1) to NEVER tell the adversary in a small claim trial ANYTHING before the trial,
2) that most people lie in court and
3) that judges don't know what they are doing even/especially in their own profession.

Your two small experiences with the courts hardly make point 2) and 3) the rule.
Point 1) is just common sense in that you don't want to be giving your opponent ammunition for use in a small claim trial.
I've sat in on and attended a week's worth of court hearings(at one time) and people lying appeared to be the exception.

Being able to tell when a person, that you don't know, is lying is not as easy as you make it out to be and I doubt your ability to do so. Even judges are not infallible or can't always tell when someone is lying.
By humanrights
#13100084
I am not trying to give 100% proof here. That is boring for everybody. I am trying to spawn a discussion.

A tenant did some damage to my apartment and I was trying to make her pay for 25% of the damage via withholding 25% of her last month's deposit. I took pictures before I repainted. Unknown to me, her girlfriend took the apartment after she did and never paid. Not only that, but the first tenant got into the apartment and took pictures AFTER the apartment was repainted. She even made the mistake of snapping a photo of her girlfriend in the apartment which proved the point. Boy, I knew with 100% absolute certainty what she had done, but I wasn't allowed to enter any objections or proof into the court to prove my point. See in Massachusetts, they have a prejudicial law that makes the landlord subject to treble damages plus court costs if the court doesn't find his claim has any merit. So I had to give up.

But boy could she lie good! Actually, I could detect several signs of lying, but the court was brain dead.

There was another similar case with the same result.

See, in the bigger cases, you must reveal your facts to the defendant. In small claims court, I found you are a fool to reveal your information.
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By Godstud
#13100259
Sometimes that's when a lawyer would have won the case for you and while not making any real money you would have at least gotten some satisfaction over the win result.
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By legalboxerbriefs
#13100898
Regarding the OP's post, I have to say that, no, judges should not be executed for getting it wrong, especially in cases where the death penalty is not involved. I'm with Ryan Owens on this:

We should just outlaw the death penalty and that'd solve this entire thing without pointless death.


In cases of corruption or when personal bias has clearly interfered with the judicial process and the right to a fair trial, I would say that the judge should relieved of his post and jailed (after trial, of course).
By Huntster
#13101176
Everybody makes mistakes.

However, if there is a judge who consistently levies light sentences for violent criminals, and those criminals are repeatedly released and commit more violent crimes, and when this is pointed out and the judge plays the excuse game or defiantly defend their ridiculous actions, they should be fired........................

...............just like everybody else.

Black robes shouldn't make one God, especially if some are proven idiots.
By Wolfman
#13101297
Arguments on the Death Penalty aside, we cann't execute Judges for an incorrect Death Penalty conviction. It has little to do with morals. Judges don't sentence people, the Jury does. Atleast State-side. Judges do have a say, but the major part of the decission comes from the Jury.
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By Godstud
#13101379
Judges don't execute people. The Justice System sets those sentences to be used in certain extreme cases.
Yes. Judges should be fired for incompetence, although you can't fire every judge on their first mistake or you'll never have judges.
By Wolfman
#13101389
^ But it's the Jury that convicts and sentences people, the Judge having a small amount of say in the matter. Are you gonna fire society? Cause I'd like to see that
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By Godstud
#13101408
The sentences are put in place by the justice system and the jury is merely going by the guidelines of that system. If you make the maximum penalty for murder as execution, you can't really be surprised when people use that penalty. The judge does have a say in the determination of the penalty and can even remove the death penalty. The jury generally only decides innocence or guilt(if you are being tried by jury, that is.). In Canada, you have a choice in how you are tried(jury or judge) for more serious offences.

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