In our system of government, one that relies on balance to prevent a concentration of power, the judicial branch is arguably the most powerful. With its ability to declare both executive and legislative actions unconstitutional, the judicial branch has a lot of leeway in determining the final say on whether or not our country can or cannot do a particular thing. This power, however, requires that the judicial branch have effective judges for everything to work properly. Judges have immense responsibility. In criminal trials, they are responsible for making sure that the lawyers follow all of the rules of evidence, and insuring that defendants get every right afforded to them. They make sure that everything is fair, and that the jury is given adequate information to decide the factual guilt or innocence of a party. In civil trials, judges must decide hard cases. In other words, where the law is not exactly clear on a subject, and a novel case comes up, they have the responsibility of interpreting precedent and deciding, in some cases, what the best policy to adopt is. Judges are "bound" by precedent. In every case, the judge must write down his decision, explaining why he decided the way he did, and that decision is published in what are called reporters. These decisions become law. Then, when a similar case comes up, the judge must know the law that has been decided in previous cases, and must evaluate his or her case in light of those previous decisions. This is what is called "precedent." An effective judge will be guided by precedent. They will interpret those cases decided before the one at hand, and will decide what those precedents dictate. In cases where precedent does not dictate a ruling, an effective judge will look at what will result from different rulings, and pick the best possible policy. Conversely ineffective judges will ignore precedent and the decisions of higher courts, and will make maverick decisions. In the court room, effective judges are attentive and reasonable, while ineffective judges can sometimes be aloof, bullies, or both.

Everything I have said up to now is true of lower court judges. However, when talking about Supreme Court Justices, effectiveness can vary depending on who you ask. There are several schools of thought on what a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to do, depending on how you believe the constitution is to be interpreted. For example, the originality, like current Justice Scalia, believe that the constitution is to be interpreted the way it would have been when it was written, in the eighteenth century (Scalia, 2005). Other schools of thought believe the constitution is a living thing that is to be interpreted differently as times change (Gutmann, 1998). It is therefore very hard to evaluate the effectiveness of a Supreme Court Justice without first choosing a camp to side with. There are, however, a few qualities that all Justices share, most of them relating to more general aspects of the job. For instance, an effective Justice will have an open mind, and will not go into a case with his mind already made up. What is more, a Justice will be an umpire as much as possible, merely applying rules and not making them (unless they have to). On the other hand, an ineffective Justice may pick sides, and decide a case based on his own personal legal philosophy that he or she wishes to advance. Or even worse, they may decide a case based on their own personal political agenda that they wish to advance. This is the worst type of ineffective judge. In reality, the only course of action for high court judges is impeachment. Judges are extremely protected, and Supreme Court Justices, especially, are insulated from political pressure to insure that they do not do this very thing (decide cases for political reasons)! If they cannot be held in check by their colleagues, the only alternative is impeachment. This will not only prevent this particular judge from making bad decisions, but it will also serve as a deterrent to other judges, so that they will not do the same thing. With lower court judges, however, there are other courses of action. The most effective is for a higher court to overturn their decision upon appeal. No lower court judge will want to be overturned, as it will be embarrassing and reflect poor judgment from down below. So in the lower courts there is much less to be concerned about, as compared to the all-mighty judges who sit on state and federal appeals and Supreme Courts.

References: Scalia, A. (2005). Law & Language. First Things, Nov., 23. Gutmann, A. (1998). A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. Princeton:
Princeton University Press. 36-41.