Judge Podcast Assignment Paralegal Court Class Tcc

Jennifer Marek Courts Class M-TH 6-8PM

Judge Podcast Assignment “Life of the Law”

The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided the case of Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar regarding judicial elections was upheld. The Supreme Court held stated in the second part of the podcast the states are allowed to impose and enforce limits on judicial fundraising. The Supreme Court ruled that way because when the Justices were questioning and discussing the case for example:

Justice Breyer brought up the issue of interfering with free speech and the extent of the conversation with lawyers, businesses and others and adding on the conversation “…and please give me money for my campaign.” He used the right to free speech in determining the law. He also talked about the role of the judge.

Justice Sotomeyer went back to speak about judicial dignity coercion and told if she rarely asked a lawyer to do something that person would do the Justice a favor of course. She talked about the judges’ role in context to relationships of power and status.

Justice Scalia was the one who first brought up judicial dignity and tradition talking about ethical rules (I did laugh when he said John Marshall would comment anonymously). Judge involvement of knowing who gives and does not contribute to campaigns can be a conflict of interest or the judge could be bias.

This rolls in what the narrator talked about on how the judges are not perceived as politicians and their functions are different than of politicians. Judges’ roles are not to show favoritism or bias which was Chief Justice Roberts’ majority concern.

After J.Scalia’s turn in the podcast the narrator talked about the question of quid pro quo corruption. Quid pro quo is “something for something” this leads to maybe an action that is exchanged for another action. This could be a conflict of interest if the judge knows a lawyer contributed a lot of money to his campaign and is showing favoritism towards this lawyer’s case, if this is...