Editing State court (United States) (section)

==State court judges==

Unlike federal courts, where [[judge]]s are [[List of positions filled by presidential appointment with Senate confirmation|presidential appointees]] confirmed by the [[U.S. Senate]] serving life terms of office, the vast majority of states have some judges who are elected, while some judges are appointed.  The methods of judicial appointment vary widely.

The American habit of electing state court judges originates with [[Alexander Hamilton]] and [[Federalist No. 78]], in which Hamilton brought about a fundamental reconceptualization of the idea of [[separation of powers]] with respect to the judiciary.  Before Hamilton, both English and American people had thought of judges as mere appendages of royal authority, and that a government had only two branches, the executive and the legislative.  Hamilton implied and others later developed the idea that American judges were coequal to legislatures and executives in their responsibility to carry out the people's will ([[popular sovereignty]]), which extended to the power to make law (through [[case law]]).  Therefore, if the judiciary was a coequal third branch of government, and the judges were the people's agents, then like the other branches, they ought to be elected by the people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wood |first1=Gordon S. |author-link1=Gordon S. Wood |editor1-last=Scalia |editor1-first=Antonin |chapter=Comment |title=A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law |date=2018 |pages=49–64 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l3CYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA54 |access-date=12 December 2020|publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton|doi=10.2307/j.ctvbj7jxv.6 |isbn=978-0-691-17404-4 }} (At p. 54.)</ref>  However, problems with partisan judicial elections led many states to later adopt judicial appointment systems, while also using [[retention election]]s as a check on appointed judges.

State court judges are usually distinguished attorneys who have had some political involvement, who are pursuing second careers on the bench. But a small number of state court judges, particularly in limited jurisdiction trial courts in rural areas or small towns, are nonlawyers, who are often elected to their posts.

A disproportionate share of state court judges previously served as prosecutors, or less commonly as criminal defense attorneys or trial lawyers, although no particular background as an attorney is required to serve as a judge. The judiciary is not a separate profession in the American legal system as it is in many civil law jurisdictions.  While in many civil law jurisdictions a common judicial career involves an entry-level assignment in an inferior court followed by promotions to more senior courts over the course of a career, no U.S. court system makes experience in an inferior judicial position a prerequisite to higher judicial office.

While many countries consider criminal prosecutors to be part of the judicial branch, in the United States, all criminal prosecutors are considered part of the executive branch.  The fact that all attorneys admitted to the practice of law are somewhat confusingly called "officers of the court" in U.S. legal practice is a legal fiction that calls attention to the special professional ethical obligations that all lawyers have to the court, and does not mean that all lawyers are employees or agents of the judicial branch.

State court judges are typically paid less, have smaller staffs, and handle larger caseloads than their counterparts in the federal judiciary.