Power of Unelected Judges: The Case of Dred Scott
Setting a precedent and, therefore, establishing the framework that would, later on, be used as the default for determining the outcomes of court cases is one of the characteristics of the U.S Court that relies heavily on the unbiased nature of the proceedings. However, at the early stage of the U.S. justice system development, the described framework could be defined as substantially flawed, at best, as the case of Dred Scott proves (Dyer, 2018). Having led to slavery being enshrined into the U.S. law, the case in question demonstrated that having unelected and, therefore, potentially biased judges at the helm of the decision-making process skews the outcomes of the case, encouraging the judges in question to introduce the court ruling based on their perceptions as opposed to the foundational principles of justice.
Indeed, when considering the case of Dred Scott from the present-day perspective, one will concede without any doubt that Scott not only was fully entitled to argue his case in court as the party that had been wronged by the ruling class, but also had the right for legal recourse, which he was eventually denied. Furthermore, delving into the details of the case, one will realize that the outcome of the court proceedings was inevitable in the case in question due to the presence of obvious biases in the judges’ perspectives (Griffen & Schools, 2019). Given the fact that the judges were not selected, introducing any new opinions on the subject matter and, therefore, giving Scott an opportunity to win the case did not seem possible due to the described flaw in the legal standards of the time (Cook, 2019). Thus, the infamous case of Dred Scott proves the necessity for selected jury as the foundation for fairness and unbiased judgment in court.
References
Cook, W. S. (2019). Social justice applications and the African American liberation tradition. Journal of Black Studies, 50(7), 651-681.
Dyer, J. B. (2018). The Substance of Dred Scott and Roe v Wade. Geo. JL & Pub. Pol’y, 16, 421.
Griffen, A. J., & Schools, D. P. (2019). When Black rights do not matter: A historical analysis of civil litigation and “equal protections under law.”. The Journal of Pan African Studies (Online), 12(9), 15-34.