Which statement is not a criticism of Texas's system for selecting state district judges?
a. Too few minorities have been elected to judicial positions in Texas.
b. The lack of minority judges undermines minority citizens' faith in the justice system.
c. Single-member districts would provide better judicial representation to specific areas.
d. State district judges should be appointed by the governor or county judges.
e. Creating minority-controlled districts would provide better minority representation on the bench.
Q. 2Critics of the judicial selection process in Texas argue that _____.
a. judges' reliance on campaign contributions compromises their independence
b. partisan elections permit judges to be corrupted by campaign contributions
c. public financing of judicial campaigns would help to eliminate the idea that judges are controlled by special interests
d. all of these
e. none of these
Q. 3A system in which the governor makes appointments from a list submitted by a commission and judges must be reapproved in a referendum at regular intervals is called a _____ system.
a. partisan election
b. nonpartisan election
c. legislative appointment
d. gubernatorial appointment
e. merit selection
Q. 4Which statement is not an accurate characterization of crime and punishment in Texas?
a. Courts in Texas are badly overcrowded.
b. Prisons in Texas are badly overcrowded.
c. Texans have reported feeling safer as the crime rate has gone down over the last decade.
d. Despite the crime rate going down over the last decade, Texas still has a high rate of street crime.
e. The focus on plea bargains puts criminals back on the streets more quickly.
Q. 5In what way are social and fiscal conservatives in Texas at odds over how to deal with crime?
a. Social conservatives want to punish criminals harshly, but fiscal conservatives object to the expense of long prison sentences.
b. Fiscal conservatives prefer alternative sentencing to avoid the high cost of building and maintaining prisons.
c. Both social and fiscal conservatives believe that more money should be spent on punishing criminals, but they disagree on how to spend the money.
d. Social conservatives want to punish criminals harshly, but fiscal conservatives object to the expense of long prison sentences and prefer alternative sentencing to avoid the high cost of building and maintaining prisons.
e. All of these are ways in which social and fiscal conservatives are at odds.
Q. 6When an accused person enters a plea of guilty after negotiating a lesser charge, it is known as a _____.
a. good deal
b. plea bargain
c. common plea
d. raw deal
e. hung jury