I don't know much about Judge L. Phillips Runyon III, but I like his perspective on the judiciary. Regarding the use of state trespassing laws to harass illegal immigrants,
Opponents like Arnie Alpert, New Hampshire coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee, say such citations will discourage immigrants, legal and illegal alike, from cooperating with police officers. And Porfirio Thierry Muñoz-Ledo, the Mexican consul general in Boston, who attended Tuesday's hearing, said, "The concern is that we are dealing in a state court with matters that belong to a federal level."Judge Runyon seemed somewhat concerned about that as well.
"Am I going to determine whether someone is here legally or not?" he asked the prosecutor. "Isn't that what the federal immigration system is for? Is it for part-time district court judges like me who know nothing about immigration and arguably nothing much about anything else either?"
That's pretty much the impression I get about most judges, though they themselves don't realize it.
It's a nice zinger, but I find the underlying premise ludicrous. State court judges rule on matters of federal law every day, and vice-versa. If you think our legal is chaotic now, imagine how much worse it would be if every trial that raised both federal and state issues had to be bifurcated between one mini-trial in a federal court and another in a nearby state court.
Judges should know a lot about the issues they rule on.
Mark: I think there are some kinds of judges with specialized knowledge outside just law, but maybe Xrlq can enlighten us? We're to the point where we need special technology judges.
There is some specialization in a few courts, eg., tax courts, drug courts and probate courts. Federal IP cases, I believe, generally end up in the Federal Circuit. I don't know what the procedure is for deciding which judges get what cases in ordinary, generic courts. You'll have to ask a litigator that one.