“Recently I cited Thomas Sowell’s article on judges’ “opinions,” in which he argued that it shouldn’t make any different what a judge believes so long as he knows that his job is to follow the law, not impose his own views on it. ISTM that we’ve inverted the roles of judges and juries. It used to be that the judge followed the letter of the law, and the jury’s job was to decide (no matter what the nit-picky law says) if an honest man would have done the same thing. This is called “jury nullification,” and if it weren’t for jury nullification the underground railroad never would have worked. The people who were helping runaway slaves were clearly breaking the law, but juries refused to convict because they agreed with their principles. That’s why we have juries — so 12 honest citizens can act as a check on lawyers and legislators, who can get too caught up in procedure and legal mumbo-jumbo to see the big picture. When you put the educated elite in charge, you get communism and other stupidities”. –Greg Krehbiel writing at Crowhill blog