Originally published as an Inspection column. These opinions are not officially approved by the BJCP This editorial is the opinion of Mr. Carman, and not the opinion of all the staff or writers here at Professor Good Ales.
Written by Ken Carman
What does the assignment of Aileen Cannon to the Trump case, after this Trump appointee’s previous Trump case remind me of?
The kind of potential beer judges who, if honest, shouldn’t be judging an entry in a beer competition because they know the brewer. Also the kind of test taker who might not pass a beer judging test, if they were honest. Example paraphrased question, “Can you judge an entry if you know the brewer?” The answer is obvious, “NO.”
Beer judging tests are actually quite hard. But the bar should obviously be higher for bench judges than beer judges.
I have heard some lawyer wannabes compare the written BJCP beer judge test to being harder to pass than the Bar. Once you become a beer judge you are expected to judge according to, and within, the BJCP Guidelines. If you’re judging IPAs but somehow a stout got into the flight you’re not supposed to make it a winner because you prefer stouts. In fact before even judging that entry you need to ask if it was placed in the wrong category, essentially the wrong group of judges.
Equally, as bench judge, guidelines for getting assigned to any court case should be at least equally tough. If there are no uncompromised judges (like no conflicts) in a circuit then a uncompromised judge should be brought forth from elsewhere. Just letting THEM decide if they’re compromised isn’t good enough. Indeed a beer competition organizer, and/or the judge organizer, has/have the job of making sure Judge Ken doesn’t judge his own beer, and like bench judging one of the highest, most important, ethical calls is to tell the organizer of such conflicts.
In the current kerfuffle, I have a hard time believing the selection of Aileen Cannon was random, being the second time. It’s like assigning a beer judge to a category he has already shown to have a problem with.
Yes, because of where the case is being tried it was likely Cannon would get the case. But she already had problems and was appointed by Trump, the last not crucial unless a judge showed an obvious bias. AS SHE DID.
To me this is symptomatic of a basic problem we have with justice in this country. If this was just some random choice then perhaps “random” is a bad way to do it. Judges who have obvious conflicts aren’t permissible in beer judging, why the lower bar for bench judges? Just being appointed by by someone not as crucial as having shown an obvious bias.
That’s what we have today. Appointing judges has become far more a political move: CHOOSING bias, than it has ever been in a long time. And our country is not served well: nor justice, by the back and forth politicization of the judging pool. A sign of a GOOD judge is one who, from time to time, disappoints those who appointed them.
Obviously you can’t have blind judging like you do in beer judging where the judge doesn’t know who they are judging. But certainly there are signs that a judge has a problem being objective, judging according to the law, standards and the Constitution if that doth apply.
Seems packing courts and “the Court” has become “the way it’s done” in recent decades, not that historically that is a total anomaly by any means. When it comes to packing courts/The Court, I find little difference between making up a rule about “not during and election year” then rushing a nomination through after your candidate has lost, and expanding or cutting back on the number of judges as a tit for tat response.
However, I am reminded of a Nixon quote, “No unilateral disarmament.” (I think Reagan said it too.)
Tit for tat has become THE standard, and when it comes to assigning judges and appointing judges, made worse by something that should be strictly illegal: shopping for judges. In beer world it’s as if those who enter get to choose their friends to judge their entries who know they brewed those entries.
A justice system based on politics needs to be changed. This is something any true American should agree this.
My solutions?
One way that’s solved in beer judging is having at least two judges, appointed by different sides. NO ELECTED JUDGES. Should be illegal, made unconstitutional. Voting in judges is akin to subjecting them to subjective, sometimes extreme, trends. Akin to deputizing a lynch mob. Akin to approving of some Frankenstein-ian mob. Justice should never be controlled by popularity.
The two judge idea IS problematic in a system already burdened by so many cases.
So maybe what we need is to take the choice out of the hands of the voters and the politicians. At least a bipartisan committee, combined with the recommends of professional (not partisan) organizations. NO Federalist-like partisan groups need apply, no matter what side they’re on. Combine that with experience. The more experience one has judging certain cases the higher they rise. The wider their experience the more they rise compared to the first. Judging, like any discipline, is a learning experience. Defense attorneys and prosecutors get to weigh in with their assessments. A score system is developed and that final score decides when they go from regular courts to district, all the way to the Supremes.
The irony being that’s kind of like how entries rise up to Best of Show, or not. Kind of like how beer judges rise in rank when adding in how on the job training, as well as studying, observing, makes more educated, knowlegeable. And more like the bench system we used to have.