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25 January 2008 |
You may be relieved to hear that in Virginia USA, judges are not allowed to decide cases by the toss of a coin. Judge James Michael Shull was held to have failed to uphold the Virginia Court's dignity when he flipped a coin to decide an issue about holiday contact with children in a family dispute and he was dismissed.
You may be relieved to hear that in Virginia USA, judges are not allowed to decide cases by the toss of a coin. Judge James Michael Shull was held to have failed to uphold the Virginia Court's dignity when he flipped a coin to decide an issue about holiday contact with children in a family dispute and he was dismissed.
Evidently a similar event occurred in similar proceedings a few years ago near Detroit Michigan again in the US but the judge appears to have avoided the ultimate sanction.
In the Enron criminal trial recently the judge initially proposed a coin toss over which set of lawyers would sit closest to the jury box. The idea drew protests from the lawyers.
KCJ Consultant Simon John (the author of Butterworths chapter on Personal Injury Claims in the USA ) comments
"Much about the US legal system is different, including the fact that most Judges are elected. In the UK all judges are appointed.
About 77 percent of US Trial Court and Appeal Court Judges stand for some form of contestable election.
However, the actual number of judges initially elected may be lower than these percentages suggest because some elective judicial vacancies are filled by appointment before judges ever face voters at the polls". |
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