Re: Excusing Judges for Knowing Too Much

[Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>]

Timothy C. May wrote:
> At 8:20 AM -0500 11/8/96, Jim Ray wrote:
> >been decided and appealed, because of this very possibility. I am already
> >concerned that an ambitious U.S. Attorney, using Alta Vista, could attempt
> >to argue that "cypherpunk terrorists have been secretly trying to subtly
> >influence Kozinski's thinking, and that therefore he should be removed from
> >the case in favor of some judge who has no clue whatsoever about the 'Net,
> >encryption, anonymous remailers, etc." [I am sure the argument wouldn't be
> >put quite that way <g> but that's what the U.S. Attorney would mean.] There
> >is now a judge with some idea of these issues who will IMNSHO probably be
> >fair to "our" side. It is a rare opportunity, and I don't want to "blow it."

> If jurors can be dismissed for knowing "too much" about the O,J.
> case--knowing how to _read_ ensures this--then we are probably
> fast-approaching the point where judges are recused (or whatever the word
> is) from hearing cases where they've had any education whatsover on.

Maybe people should worry about how judges are *not* excused in certain cases.

The early word on the street was that the Japanese mob did Ron & Nicole, and *both*
judges look suspiciously like people who might want to *contain* certain information.