Humanities desk
< February 16	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 18 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 17

Death of a sitting judge

Under US federal court rules, what happens to a case when the presiding judge dies midway through the case? Can they just assign another judge to the case, and it goes on? Is there a mistrial and everyone starts over from the beginning? I'm imagining a death that doesn't involve the case directly, e.g. the judge is driving to work and has a heart attack or gets into a car accident. Google supplied me with List of United States federal judges killed in office, but that doesn't address what happened to the listed judges' active cases. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here it is for civil cases. I'll post again regarding criminal cases.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 63. Judge's Inability to Proceed

If a judge conducting a hearing or trial is unable to proceed, any other judge may proceed upon certifying familiarity with the record and determining that the case may be completed without prejudice to the parties. In a hearing or a nonjury trial, the successor judge must, at a party's request, recall any witness whose testimony is material and disputed and who is available to testify again without undue burden. The successor judge may also recall any other witness. 2602:304:CDA0:9220:C5D5:C63F:DCE2:55BE (talk) 03:12, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And here's for criminal cases:

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 25. Judge's Disability

(a) During Trial. Any judge regularly sitting in or assigned to the court may complete a jury trial if: (1) the judge before whom the trial began cannot proceed because of death, sickness, or other disability; and (2) the judge completing the trial certifies familiarity with the trial record. (b) After a Verdict or Finding of Guilty. (1) In General. After a verdict or finding of guilty, any judge regularly sitting in or assigned to a court may complete the court's duties if the judge who presided at trial cannot perform those duties because of absence, death, sickness, or other disability. (2) Granting a New Trial. The successor judge may grant a new trial if satisfied that: (A) a judge other than the one who presided at the trial cannot perform the post-trial duties; or (B) a new trial is necessary for some other reason. 2602:304:CDA0:9220:C5D5:C63F:DCE2:55BE (talk) 03:15, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Independent executive presidents & French political system

According to current polls, Emmanuel Macron is the mostly likely next president of France. Macron is running as independent (well, he has En Marche!, but that's just the party he set up to back him, and it has no reps) which from what I can tell seems to be a fairly unique situation. Are there other modern cases of an independent executive president (and not one closely to allied to a party but nominally independent, like Lech Wałęsa or Bernie Sanders), and if so, how does it work?

Side question: With its semi-presidential system, how does France deal with situations where the president's party doesn't come close to a parliamentary majority? The most generous opinion polls for the French legislative election, 2017 see the National Front winning around 10% of seats, meaning that the opposition to a Le Pen cabinet would be 90% of the Assembly. Is there any precedent for how this worst-case scenario would play out? Smurrayinchester 11:04, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Divided government is what it is called when the executive and legislature are not of the same party. In France, this goes by the specific name "cohabitation". Our article on the subject covers the times it has happened in the past, and how it works. --Jayron 32 11:46, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Those all seem to be cases of a left-right split, where both of the parties were very established. I'm more interested in cases where the president was either a genuine independent, and had no-one in the legislature, or was of a party excluded by cordon sanitaire. Smurrayinchester 12:31, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, looking deeper in Macron, I'm not sure he's as independent as you seem to think; you specifically cited Bernie Sanders as someone different than Macron, but it looks like he's a very Bernie Sanders-like politician, what you call "closely to allied to a party but nominally independent" Officially, he is not a member of a French political party (like Sanders), however his policies and positions and political leanings are closely allied to the Socialist Party (France), a party he was formerly a member of, and one which is the governing party of the national assembly. --Jayron 32 14:16, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Macron is rather the opposite of Sanders. Sanders is and - apart from during his presidential campaign, always was - an independent but caucuses with the Dems and does not run against them (when Clinton beat him in the primaries, he didn't run as a spoiler) and had he won the nomination, he would have had the Democratic machinery behind him. Macron was formerly a member of the Socialists (although never an elected politician for them), but has served both left and right wing governments, and he will be running against them at this election. Smurrayinchester 15:08, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification. I was trying to glean information from his article; it appears you already know more about the subject than others here. --Jayron 32 15:36, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add a couple of points: (1) Charles de Gaulle, the first President under the 5th Republic, did not belong to a political party; instead his supporters decided to form a political movement to provide him with support in Parliament. The current constitution is very much shaped by de Gaulle's views, and presidential elections are not based on candidates running under a party label (which helps to explain why there are always so many candidates splitting the first round votes every which way). (2) Parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place shortly after the upcoming presidential elections. If Macron were to win the presidency, there would likely be something similar to what happened under de Gaulle: candidates running for election defining themselves as either supporters or opponents of the newly-elected president. Traditionally, supporters of a newly-elected president have done well in parliamentary elections. Instances of cohabitation have only occurred towards the end of a presidential mandate, in the days when presidents were elected to a seven-year term while the Assemblée Nationale was up for reelection after five years. --Xuxl (talk) 18:21, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As to the part of the question about independent executive Presidents, in the modern era of the United States, pretty much the only time this has been seen as a possibility of occurring on the Presidential level was Ross Perot presidential campaign, 1992. He did not belong to any established party, yet for a candidate totally outside the two-party system, he manage to score 18.97% of the popular vote, the most since Theodore Roosevelt in the United States presidential election, 1912. Roosevelt was also outside the two-party system at the time, yet scored 27.4% of the popular vote. Neither of these candidates actually won, yet I thought this might be of interest to the OP nevertheless? Eliyohub (talk) 12:04, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just TV BS that Nevada casinos could let people at least too drunk to drive bet on credit, give them free drinks, then get them incarcerated for a year or two if their life savings couldn't cover the loaned bets they lost?

That seems unfair. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:52, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a reliable source for your presumption you've made when you asked your question? If you can direct us to where we can read about where you got the above information, we can then direct you to more reading to help you understand it. --Jayron 32 14:12, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I once saw a lawyer show (as in 100% fiction like CSI) where a casino kept offering free drinks and casino markers and he drunk and bet 'em till he couldn't pay them back if he lost. And an employee held his arm to help his alcohol-impaired arm sign a marker but the judge didn't think he was drunk or taken advantage of enough and gave him about a year or two of prison. That seemed like something I'd want a reliable source to believe too. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you'd have to ask the writers where they got that from. Fiction means "people making stuff up". The best I can offer is to allow you to read, on your own time, concepts like debtor's prison and come to your own understanding of how debt and incarceration works historically and in the modern world. --Jayron 32 15:47, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies to User:Jayron32, for accidentally deleting this comment. ApLundell (talk) 17:24, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly true that casinos will comp drinks to patrons.

It's also true that a casino marker is not a loan. It's more like writing check that you're expected to be able to pay off. Signing one that you can't actually pay is theoretically criminal.

The TV show you describe sounds like a bit of an exaggeration for effect, but I think it's safe to say that a lot of markers are signed when people are at least pretty well buzzed.

It's my understanding that a lot of modern Vegas casinos will want electronic access to your bank statement before you can get a marker, and use the statement to figure out what you can afford to pay back. Presumably because arresting patrons for defaulting is bad for business. ApLundell (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Casino markers may or may not be enforceable, depending on the circumstances/jurisdictions: "Unpaid markers upheld as bad checks" in Nevada (2000), "gambling debt isn’t recognized as valid by Chinese courts" (2016) Clarityfiend (talk) 10:09, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]