Musings on law, tech, chess & other topics by a geek

The keynote was amazing, O’connor voiced strong support for appointment system for judges.  At the federal level judges are appointed for life.  At the state level most states have the popular elections for judges.  O’Connor asked several pointed question “Would we ever see rullings like Loving, (the case that ended legal Prohibitions on Interracial Marriage) if those judges were up for election.?” and “Do you want to face a judge with your cause if that judge faces an election and your position is legaly right but unpopular?”  The clear answer to both of these questions is no.  But her wonderful rhetoric was not why her talk was great.  The talk was great because it identified the larger problem at hand.

How do we even engage in debates on these issues when 85% of people can not even name a judge on the supreme court and more then half can not name the three branches of government. O’Connor brought up that focus needs to be placed on civic education.  Until more people can name the branches of government and understand the role of judges in the system we can not hope to fix the problems that face us. We are all aware of the problems, schools struggle teach basic civics, but few understand how to fix it.O’Connor had an idea to try to improve education and engaged lawyers, judges, students, teachers and web designers to try and address this issues.

The outcome of this collaberation is a project aimed at middle school students that teaches the basics of courts through interactive flash games.  The website for the project is Ourcourts.org and covers the basics of judicial civics in a fun way. A lot of nonprofits could learn from this type of educational project.  If you want to get people behind your cause you need to make sure and give people the basic tools to understand the issues at play.  The foundational understanding of the systems and facts is needed to engage in the debate at all.  If we only advocate for our position we can not effect real change.