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A bunch of shit is about to come out, I reckon. Only reason why he would off himself.
Yekel was appointed to the state court in 2022. He recently attempted to resign from his position, but was denied by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, according to WJCL.
I don't understand how that is legal. You can force someone to keep a job whether they want to or not?
Well, GA is employment at will so, unless there's some special law for judges I don't know about, I'm guessing the 'rejection' is more symbolic than anything. My best guess is that he was about to be fired anyway and Kemp didn't want him to get away with acting like it was on his own terms. It would be good to hear a lawyer's take on it, though.
Well, GA is employment at will so, unless there’s some special law for judges I don’t know about, I’m guessing the ‘rejection’ is more symbolic than anything.
"At-will employment" just means they're kneecapping the unions. It doesn't mean an individual's job can't be governed by an actual negotiated contract with terms different from "either party may end the agreement at any time for any reason without prior notice;" that's merely the default when no such contract exists. Actors, for example, often have actual employment contracts so they can't just abandon their portrayal of a recurring character without consequences.
I don't know if there are special employment terms for elected judges (or elected officials in general) in GA either, but I don't know that it would necessarily require a "law" (as opposed to administrative rule or even just convention) and I'm guessing I think it's more likely than you do.
At-will has little to do with curbing union power. You are thinking of right to work laws.
At-will is, as you mentioned, the default that absent a contract either party can unilaterally terminate the employment relationship except for a reason explicitly prohibited by law, like due to being part of a protected class.
Right to work laws harm unions because they allow individuals in a workplace under union contract to opt out of paying union dues while still benefitting from the agreement, draining the union of resources so it cannot be effective in the future.
Probably something about resigning in grace rather than being fired in grief.
isnt forcing someone to go into work against their wishes just false imprisonment?
He attempted to resign, but was denied. Then he lost reelection. So, this isn't a "I don't have anything to live for" situation. It's a "I don't want to live with what I've done" type thing.
Can you help my understand why his attempted resignation makes it more likely he was covering something up?
It was that he attempted to resign, was told no by the Governor, then lost his re-election, and killed himself. Basically, he got what he wanted in the first place by not being reelected, but he killed himself anyway. He was the defendant in a wrongful termination suit that may have something to do with his suicide, depending on what comes to light from that. If a guilty verdict was something that could potentially affect his pension, he might have pulled a Bud Dweyer and killed himself so his family could still collect before it was taken away from him. There could also be other things that were simmering away in the background that haven't come to light at all. It's just a very strange state of affairs to get what you want, and then kill yourself the day you get it. If it had been several months from now, I could see otherwise, but he killed himself on the last day in the office. If it isn't a statement, then I don't know what is.
re-election bid
En elected judge? That sounds like the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Could someone explain to a European how that works? Do they at least have to qualify for election in some ways?
Lot of derision but not much explanation as to how this strange system came to be.
Many state constitutions in the US were written in the 18th and 19th centuries. The key differences relevant here to this discussion were that during these times, suffrage was far more restricted, and communities were far more sparsely populated and isolated.
Prior to the 20th century, suffrage was not universal and generally was restricted to wealthy white men of status, who, as a consequence of their socioeconomic standing, also tended to be more educated and thus better suited to rationally judge the qualifications of office-seekers. A consequence of universal suffrage is that the education level of the average voter goes down.
Most Europeans severely underestimate how few people lived in these states and across how much land they occupied. The US typically granted statehood to its territories when they reached the mid to high five digits in population. The majority of Western states are the same size as the largest European countries. Let me use California as an illustrative example. Its statehood was granted in 1850 and it had a population of 92,597. So just imagine essentially a group of people fewer in number than a single small European city trying to run a piece of territory the size of Germany (California is actually bigger than Germany by 69,000 km²).
What happens in such a scenario is that communities become very isolated and insular. They get used to running their own affairs since basically any model of centralised government is going to fail when your population density is 0.2 people per km².
Understand that aside from tightly-knit indigenous communities (who were branded as "savages" and categorically excluded from participation in so-called "civilised" society) this was literally unsettled land. Empty plains, dry desert, and wild forest for hundreds of kilometres around where there was no law but those of physics.
In these isolated communities, you still need to fill the required leadership roles, but you run into the issue where nobody is particularly qualified to these offices and further still, the townsfolk don't really want to just elect a single person to fill all the other offices by appointments. Rather the best way to fill these offices is by election where the community can get together and decide collectively who is best qualified for office. So how it would go is that everyone entitled to suffrage would, every other year, ride their horses into the county seat, which could take hours, and then listen to the candidates' campaign pitches, vote for whomever they thought was the most qualified for sheriff and county judge, and then go home and never hear from those people again for months on end.
As a result, when these territories were granted statehood, most delegates to the conventions that wrote the state constitutions saw no reason to deviate from these established methods for picking local office-holders.
Edit: I realise this also doesn't explain why these constitutions haven't been amended to allow for appointed judges in the modern US. The reason is because politics in the US is extremely cutthroat and anyone who proposes such an amendment is taking a rather unnecessary risk with their political career because their political opponents can then attack them for taking away power from the voters in favour of "unelected bureaucrats".
People always underestimate how much the scale of the United States warped governance if we look at it through European lenses
What I like most about this explanation is that there is very little excusing OR blame featured. You mention the sociocultural prejudices (briefly as their relevance to this specific topic is limited) and you use overall very objective language throughout to describe the sociolocultural context of rural communities. 10/10.
Hey, thanks for taking the time to write that out, it's a cool bit of context to better understand why you guys have votes for some jobs.
California became a state in 1850, not 1950.
Hawaii was 1959, and was the last state.
That was a typographical error. I fixed it
Hawaii was 1959, and was the last state.
So far. I still hold out hope for ~~Canada~~ Puerto Rico.
No. Bible belt USA coroners and medical examiners don't even have to have medical degrees, and judges don't need a juris doctor degree.
medical examiners don’t even have to have medical degrees
Vote for me. Do I look like a necrophiliac?
Hey, as long as you clean up before the mortician comes, I won't tell anyone.
Well, now that you mention it...
People are giving you somewhat bad information. This may differ in other states, but they do need to have practiced law in Georgia for seven years prior to being allowed to run for election.
Its a dumb system but not completely unregulated.
Other states have various methods of selecting judges. In Colorado, the governor appoints them for their first term, then they are subjected to a retention vote every few years. They rarely lose their retention votes.
Not that dumb, they're people deciding the lives of others so picking them democratically makes sense.
It is dumb. It is to to states how they do it, but most of the times the state judges are selected via election. Which is tough as a voter it is very hard to learn about a judge especially if the judges supposed to be non partisan (believe in our not, but in some states they declare the part they are in).
IMO the governor should select judges and perhaps give option during election to allow people to recall them if they are grossly biased or something (at that point judge would be well known).
Looks like a storm of issues.
The position is non-partisan. I couldn't find anything obvious.
Looks like his wife blew his wad at a daycare business that bankrupted them and she divorced quick.
blew his wad at a daycare business
God in Three Persons, phrasing.
Well guess that means he's guilty!
Of, what exactly?
Have you seen the judicial system?
"honey, today's your last day of work. Then it's just you and me 24hrs a day."
"I hate my wife" cue laughtrack
I have a buddy who lives in Effingham county, he said
"Apparently he was trying to resign to undo the recent election where he lost to the first person to run against him in a while".
The dude was 74, and pissed he lost an election to the first incumbent?
So he shoots himself?
That... Well. Ok I have no fucking idea how it clears much up, but he didn't like that outcome by the look of it.
Used to be a part of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax office. Maybe it's just a case of the sin of pride.
The devil went down to Georgia and he was lookin for a judge to appeal.
What dat cult life does to a violent wacko in a costume.