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theRepublic said:
Sqrl said:
theRepublic said:
You believe that judges can remain impartial sqrl, I don't.

I said "the most impartial", not "completely impartial".  The point is with nine people who are extremely impartial you have 8 people anchoring anyone who shows some small bias on a given case.  That is sort of the idea of having a large panel rather than a single justice.

Where we actually disagree is that I think it is foolhearty to try and "tune" the court by thinking you can assess which biases are greater and adding someone with an equal but opposite bias to counteract.  This reasoning is insane because the positions aren't permanent and adding offset bias inevitably will produce more bias than just assigning the least biased people you can.

Not to mention that it is a method of reactionary nullification which diminishes the purpose of it being a nine member panel rather than utilizing it as the immense strength that it is.

I editted on you.  Sorry.

The edit actually doesn't change my point really. I don't argue against the idea that your experiences shape your biases...that is a given. My contention is that selecting people for those biases as a way to "counteract" (or "balance" if you want to flower it up) other biases is insane because the members will inevitably change leaving the court biased. 

By selecting the least biased people the majority will anchor the bias and prevent it from corrupting.  And like I said nullifying existing bias by adding bias is nullifying the nine justice dynamic and basically making it a 7 justice dynamic...and then a 5 and then 3...and eventually nullified to just 1...and whichever bias occupies the 1 odd seat basically runs the court. It's an absolutely shortsighted way to handle things.

Least bias, most impartial means that you have a stable court where one or two justices allowing bias to get the better of them has no impact.

In short the "counteractive" or "balance" bias approach produces a highly unstable court...the most impartial approach produces a stable court.  The only question once you realize that is whether you want stability in the rule of law...kind of an easy question for me.



To Each Man, Responsibility