Is/should the Attorney General of your community be an elected or appointed position?
 

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/...?hpid=newswell

So, yeah, what do you think? In DC, as the article says, our Attorney General is appointed by the Mayor. Before now, I never even knew the name of our AG. But because this guy has the appearance of being in the mayor's pocket, people are now like.....yeah, we need to be electing the AG.

How is it where you live? What do you think is best?

Ours is elected. I didn't realize it was different anywhere else until just now so I never gave it much thought. Interestingly, ours is considering running for Governor next, but there are rumors that he was AT the infamous party that Kwame Kilpatrick had at the mayoral mansion in Detroit which may have resulted in the murder of a prostitute there. Could make for a very interesting Governor's race.

Is Brother Kwame still in prison?

Yep folks. He's an Alpha. So everybody holding me to a high standard can just stop it already.

You know, I'm not sure, but I THINK that the county prosecutors in NJ are appointed, though I'm not sure.

He is not in prison. Karmanos, the Detroit business man who owns CompuWare and the North Carolina Hurricanes, hired him for one of his businesses and he has relocated to Dallas. He is still trying to get out of paying back the city (at a rate of $6000 a month) because he says he is broke, but he bought a multimillion dollar home in Dallas. So, every few months, he comes back and goes back to court to try to explain why he can't afford to pay the city back.

Yuck.

Awesomeness.

The all-knowing Wikipedia strikes again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Attorney_General
I looked it up for my own knowledge. :o

Are you asking about Attorneys General, all of whom are state or territorial officials (with the exception of the DC AG), or about district attorneys/state prosecutors/county prosecutors or whatever they may be called, who are local officials?

I think all but about 7 or 8 state AGs are elected.

I am asking about whatever people want to talk about. :)

Let's talk about cold weather then.

I thought he meant county prosecutors. And NJ is one of the states with a appointed AG.

Hell, in Mississippi you can run for State Supreme Court.

Okay. :D But AGs and DAs are very different officials.

The majority of states elect their supreme courts either by direct elections, by indirect election (ie, election by the legislature), or by retention votes (elections on whether to keep in office someone appointed by the governor).

My father's stepfather I think was the only Court of Criminal Appeals (highest appellate court for criminal cases in Oklahoma) to ever lose a retention vote.

I prefer the retention vote model though. You're much more likely to have an independent judiciary. Here in Oklahoma, when a retention vote is lost, the judicial nomination commission (a group of well-respected lawyers appointed by the Governor) will put forward three names to the Gov. the Gov. chooses one. Same goes for District Judges (trial courts), but they also have to survive an election where someone can choose to run against them.

The AG question doesn't matter much to me...appointed or elected, I don't think it makes much of a difference.

I feel pretty strongly that judges should be appointed, though, and I'm not a fan of electing judges.