To the editor:

Last week, a local lawyer wrote a letter criticizing the effort to try to have Judge Paula Martin removed in the upcoming election. Recently, the Lawrence Journal-World wrote a story about a law professor supporting Judge Martin’s decision to dismiss an out-of-state warrant. A Kansas Supreme Court justice wrote a letter to the editor espousing “judicial independence.”

This “we know better than you because we are lawyers” attitude has become a trend. Our democracy is founded on dissent and diverging opinions. For once, we see a group of citizens organizing to have their political voices heard, and the lawyers criticize them for not being well versed in the law.

This “we know better than you” attitude is the same opinion the king of England had against the American colonists in 1760. We should take a lesson from our founding fathers and encourage political discourse. The public has a right to vote on judges for a reason: ACCOUNTABILITY. District Court judges receive a salary and benefits of $90,000 a year of taxpayer dollars.

The system is working exactly as democracy should. Judge Martin drew attention to herself based on her rulings. This is something no other judge has ever done in Douglas County. Shame on all those who want to remove her accountability.

Monica Abalan,

Lawrence