No, that's silly and not at all the same thing as a prosecutor being accountable to the electorate as a whole. The entire point is that I don't trust one person, or a small group of people, to pick someone who is "unbiased". I don't trust the electorate as a whole either, but I trust them more than elected officials.
Only three states in the US have appointed, rather than elected, district attorneys. The United States Attorney General is an appointed position, and we've seen in recent administrations how it can be corrupted quite easily.
> No, that's silly and not at all the same thing as a prosecutor being accountable to the electorate as a whole.
In my perspective, it is exactly the same thing when you disagree with the electorate. Which is why (personnally) I don't want you, or any electorate choosing prosecutors.
If every time you voted for a prosecutor, and every time your vote was in a minority, would you still feel you had a say in the bias of the prosecutor?
I agree with respect to appointments being not good. In my view those are proxies for an election. I personally trust neither electorate nor elected officials.
> In my perspective, it is exactly the same thing when you disagree with the electorate.
In a democracy, you can argue with and convince your fellow citizens to change the law and how it is enforced. If a majority doesn't agree, you won't get your way. This is not a good system, but it is better than any other system.
If there were some other alternative that guaranteed that everyone always gets a completely unbiased prosecutor - great, I'm all for it! That system doesn't exist, though.
> If every time you voted for a prosecutor, and every time your vote was in a minority, would you still feel you had a say in the bias of the prosecutor?
You said previously at least by voting you had a say in the bias. Is your answer to the above a genuine "yes" because you feel there was opportunity to lobby other citizens?
I don't agree that there is necessarily even that possibility. Thus my position is that elected or appointed by an elected official are equally broken.
Who, exactly, gets to choose how unbiased the prosecutor is? You won't get that from a democratic election and you won't get that from elected officials choosing them.
My question is sincere. If the upstream comment wants to choose bias, then a "yes" answer to my question would be a consistent position and interesting if sincerely answered that way.
To your question, a priori bias would be hard to evaluate. Post facto there would be some data and perhaps some metrics that could be used. It would less be "who", but "how."
Prosecutor bias is a bit nebulous though. Prosecutors should be honest and present the best case possible, met with the best defense possible. The best defense being a function of wealth rather than a consistent standard is damning. But I quickly digress...
I would be interested to have my original question answered.
> If the upstream comment wants to choose bias, then a "yes" answer to my question would be a consistent position and interesting if sincerely answered that way.
I have no idea what you're saying here, but my comment was just saying that I want to vote for prosecutors rather than having them appointed. I prefer to decide for myself how biased the candidates are than to trust an elected official to pick someone who is unbiased, and to have my fellow citizens vote as well.
I don't have to assent to any random Dick, Joe, or Harry choosing a prosecutor for me to believe that everyone is better off if we are all prosecuted by someone elected.
> I prefer to decide for myself how biased the candidates
> have my fellow citizens vote as well.
I find those positions at odds to one another. Personally I don't want prosecutors to be neither appointed by elected officials nor elected. Though, I am more digging into that you think you might get a choice when voting.
Re-read what I wrote. I believe the grammar correct and it is clear.
Though, I'll illustrate with an example. Let's say the electorate is 10 people. You, 3 of your friends that think identical to you, and me with 5 of my friends that think identical to me. This is a 6 vs 4 situation. Now let's say we put up two prosecutors for election. One who will always try you unjustly, and one who will always try me unjustly. If there is an election, the 6 to 4 majority would not vote your way. Thus, despite there being a vote - you are not getting the choice of bias. Ergo, when saying (paraphrasing) "I want to choose the bias via vote", you are also saying: i am okay with others deciding the bias of a prosecutor against me
Your point is completely out of scope of what's being discussed. My comment was a reply to a comment saying "It's beyond stupid to elect people who are in charge of upholding laws and prosecute crimes." My argument is entirely and only an argument that prosecutors should be elected instead of appointed.
All this other stuff about language is not relevant and I don't care about your thought experiment because it's completely unlike the way elections work in the real world, and has nothing to do with me preferring that over a situation where one of the 10 people gets to pick the prosecutor!
My point is to demonstrate that a minority can be consistently oppressed by a majority. Thereby negating the vote of the minority. This is how people feel in northern California, eastern Oregon, and many other places.
My point is that appointments and elections are almost the same thing, nearly a distinction without a difference. Don't like the appointments, then vote for a different person. Bit of a distinction of representative democracy vs direct. Not necessarily that different. Almost entirely equally broken IMO.
> situation where one of the 10 people gets to pick the prosecutor!
That is not at all the simplification. We could change it that the 10 people are voting for someone to do the appointment of a prosecutor. Or we could flip it to a real world example where someone is in eastern oregon voting conservative, or someone lives in 1930s rural south as a minority.
The majority rule can lead to a bad path. Notably authoritarian regimes where the prosecutor promises to go after the minorities. Which has its examples historically throughout the world, including the US
