Yes, and for good reason. First, let me be unusually but sincerely candid: many judges and many of the actions that judges take disappoint me. There are some excellent judges on the bench who are clearly skilled in the law and know how to apply it accurately, justly, and equitably. Would that all judges lived up to this standard. But not all judges do. I mention this so that the context of my answer to your question is clear.
Being a judge is, in my opinion, mostly a thankless job. Sure, there are some obvious perks to being a judge, including, but not limited to, a good salary, state and federal holidays off, most judges receive a generous pension when they retire, the prestige of being called “Your Honor,” but the burdens of being a judge are in some ways unimaginable. Can you conceive of sentencing someone to life in prison or death? Or even sentencing someone to 5 to 10 years in prison when you’re not certain of his or her guilt? Can you imagine what it must be like to spend your work week, week after week, hearing hundreds of stories of lying, cheating, robbing, destroying property, assaulting, raping and murdering? It all takes an inevitable toll on even the strongest of people. Those judges who do the best they can and do the job well day after day, year-over-year deserve not only our respect, but our sympathy, our thanks, and support.
All that stated, there are clearly some judges who are not cut out for the job and need to quit. Some need to quit because they are not competent as judges. Some need to quit because, while they might have been up to the demands of the job in the beginning, they aren’t anymore. Some need to quit before they become so jaded that they cannot give the job and the people who come before them the attention both the job–and the cases they hear and decide–deserve.
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