I personally can't see it as anything other than being a lackey for cops.
I'm gonna flip this one over a bit but hear me out. I live in a major city that allows for each and every one of our judges to be voted on. To help with this we have a website that basically pulls the information on where all these judges are coming from, what they used to do. Pretty much they were all lawyers, and so the site explains what type of cases they either defended or prosecuted. They also tell you if they were a defender or prosecutor and if they had any controversies (and what those controversies were).
So last election of course I gotta sit down and look over every single one of these folks to see what they were up to. My gut was only vote yes on defenders and vote no on all prosecutors, but then I looked into some of them.
Of course most of the prosecutors were criminal prosecutors, many for kids, those folks can literally go fuck off into the sun. But there were some standouts. One had controversies because she has spent the last 10 years pretty much only prosecuting cops. Another is a prosecutor for securities frauds and white collar crime. A third only takes landlords to court. I was fascinated.
Of course then I started looking into the defenders too. If someone is prosecuting the above list then of course there are folks defending them too.
Overall I think prosecutors are bad and defenders are good but it really does depend on exactly what they're prosecuting. I voted for the guy taking down slumlords and the lady whose made it her career to take down cops because of course. Love to see them as judges
IMO "Lesser of two evils" and strategic voting are very defensible positions for races like this.
Local elections can actually matter a lot, and small efforts can make big differences. It's much more direct. Totally different sort of thing than federal
Let's not forget that Alan Dershowitz has been a defense lawyer for his whole career
To be fair though wasn't most of his work for the wealthy? It's not like he was a public defender, right?
Unfortunately someone is gonna be a judge so I'd rather the person who is jailing cops instead of the person jailing kids. I do think that voting matters a lot more at the local level too, there's a lot more meaningful impact that can be done for real people on the microscale level. But I do understand folks who just swear off bourgeois democracy altogether. I'm not under any pretense that we're going to solve anything systemic by voting for a judge, but maybe I can help keep some kids outta jail and some cops in jail. It's the little things.
yes. there are a few who have run on refusing to prosecute the war on drugs but 99% of prosecutors are cops
Generally speaking, yes. They serve capital by participating in a justice system that enslaves working class people.
Yes, some people brought before some prosecutors deserve worse than they get, but it’s definitely not the majority, or arguably even a significant amount.
