Judges

I haven't felt like blogging much lately, but an event yesterday ran a random thought through my brain and I am going to explore it just a little.

You see yesterday was inservice training for the month and I was trying to get actual work done on my breaks. One of the things I did was write a violation report and warrant and my boss signed off on it. I ran it to the judge's office on my lunch break so I could lodge it today. Well part of the warrant request states something along the lines of "before me, Joe Blow, Judge of the Criminal Court in and for X county, TN, personally came Jack Meoff, who, being first duly sworen, says that ........" Anyway, we don't usually see the judge and have always just signed the warrants and the judges sign them and let them go. If there is a question they usually call or send the report back with notes. Anyway, in the last couple of years, some of the judges have reconsiderred. With one judge we sign our stuff, but he calls us and swears us in over the telephone and then asks if each individual warrant request is true. Another, one of my judges who is no longer with us, started having us have the affidavit and warrant notorized before we submit it. The other judge found out and he started doing it. Well the new judge apparently wants to follow suite, and I forgot to have the secretary notorize it before I left. The judge was in the office, but his secretary would not take the unnotorized warrant in to him. Now the sole reason to notorize the note, is because we do not usually catch the judges in and it is a confirmation that it was the officer who signed the report swearing to the facts. If I was there in person and the judge was there, why would I need it notorized? I could swear to the report in person in his prescence as the affidavit states.

Anyway judges come in several flavors around here. City judges are elected or appointed. Their authority extends to strickly the city and they usually hear traffic court and city ordinace violations. They tend to be local attorneys.

General Sessions judges are elected by the county, their authority is county wide, but most decisions are valid statewide. They run the general sessions courts and here preliminary hearings and a lot of civil matters. They also often tend to be local lawyers, who maintain a local practice.

Circuit Court Judges are elected by the judicial district they preside over. They are state judges and are full-time judges with no private practice. They tend to either handle civil or criminal court, although if a criminal court judge is ill, a civil court judge may sit in for him. These are the judges I am dealing with.

Federal judges are appointed and hear federal matters. I have only had to deal with a federal judge twice and I like it like that.