You're a fan of Roy Moore then?
...rather let a judge - any judge from any court - selected at random legislate than leave it up to the Hasterts, DeLay's, etc. ad nauseum we have in the vaunted legislature.
[link|http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/alabam14.htm|Roy Moore], and our [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=114884|earlier discussion]. I'd much rather have DeLay have the limited power he does than have Roy Moore sitting on a state Supreme Court deciding what the law means.
Hastert, DeLay, etc., can be voted out of office. Alabama Supreme Court justices are also elected (to 6 year terms it looks like), so Moore could have been voted out, but he was was [link|http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/11/13/moore.tencommandments/|removed from office]. But Federal Supreme Court, Appellate Court and District Court judges serve for [link|http://www.uscourts.gov/faq.html|life] and can only be removed by impeachment.
Courts have a lot of power vested in a judge. It's really not a good idea for them to take over functions of the legislature. Yes, quite often the law lags behind society and sometimes creative interpretations are needed. But those should be very rare decisions, IMHO.
And your argument doesn't make much sense as presented:
1) Lawyers are in the legislature.
2) The legislature writes the laws.
3) Judges are lawyers.
Therefore judges should be able to write laws?
That doesn't make sense because high-ranking federal judges are supposed to be independent of the pressures of elections, political pressure, etc., and are supposed
rule on the law impartially. Even elected judges are supposed to be impartial. Politics by its very nature is an endeavor filled with partiality. The legislature and judiciary are designed to be different and shouldn't usurp each others roles.
Cheers,
Scott.
