Personally, I'd be happy with a few more non-judges (ideally a couple non-lawyers) on the Court (not a majority, but two or three), just to provide a touch of humanity.
I agree that a human touch is good (cf. Dred Scott), but I disagree about having non-lawyers on the court. I think we can all appreciate a decision maker who knows the rules, and knows when to break them. But putting someone in there who doesn't even know the rules is going to be more harmful than helpful. To put it another way, it's the responsibility of the elected legislature to come up with laws. The court should show wisdom in striking down laws that violate our Constitution (our core national values). But if we have a court that makes stuff up as it goes along, then we have ironically sacrificed the democratic element of our government for a pure tyranny of (unelected) judges.
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Personally, I'd be happy with a few more non-judges (ideally a couple non-lawyers) on the Court (not a majority, but two or three), just to provide a touch of humanity.
I agree that a human touch is good (cf. Dred Scott), but I disagree about having non-lawyers on the court. I think we can all appreciate a decision maker who knows the rules, and knows when to break them. But putting someone in there who doesn't even know the rules is going to be more harmful than helpful. To put it another way, it's the responsibility of the elected legislature to come up with laws. The court should show wisdom in striking down laws that violate our Constitution (our core national values). But if we have a court that makes stuff up as it goes along, then we have ironically sacrificed the democratic element of our government for a pure tyranny of (unelected) judges.
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