This just in: George W. Bush is not a lawyer (Nor was
GeorgeWashington)  Stanley M. Morris smmorris at RMI.NET Wed Aug
16 11:11:20 PDT 2000  Colorado's County Court judges handle all
misdemeanors, preliminary hearings and civil cases up to $10k.
They need not be lawyers but must be a resident of the county
where they sit. There are a few counties that have no lawyers
resident (or as inhabitants, if you prefer), so those county
judges are necessarily laymen. In my experience, the lay judges
are not so much concerned with the legal niceties, as producing
a fair result. I think, to take on Jim's "dropout CEO"example,
it is not necessary to be a CPA to make financial decisions but
Bill Gates had to know a whole bunch about computers to build
Microsoft. Similarly, the number of legal determinations made by
the S. Ct far outweigh the number of "justice" decisions made by
the court. I believe they would end up with more "justice"
rulings which strikes me as passing strange or we would have to
pay for a Justice who w