A bigger problem: the state's attorneys and judges should know about the Bill of Rights, and they are the ones with the actual power here. With such a high bail it appears this particular judgeship was granted erroneously.
Isn't this a problem everywhere, though? Why do we only hear this issue WRT the U.S.? (I freely admit it could just be because I live in the states)
People in other countries get healthcare when they need it. They get assistance when they need it. Therefore, they have extra mental cycles to use to consider the reality of politics.
In the US, we make sure our poor people have to work two jobs so they can't stop to do a damn thing about how screwed they are by participating in our democracy.
The problem instead is that our "rights" are treated as privileges that can be revoked when the powers that be deem it convenient. Our rights should be rights regardless of our intelligence. Though perhaps the responsibility for securing those rights falls most heavily upon the cleverest among us..in which case the problem isn't that there are folks of below average intelligence, it's that those particularly blessed with keen minds aren't doing enough to defend the rights of us all.
Imagine an "education" scale of 1-20.
If you have 3 persons with 12 and one with 20, then the average is 14 -- and you have MORE than half of the people below average.
This particular judge, Jack Robison, was elected. Repeatedly.
He was also reprimanded by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct in 2009 after he ordered a man jailed for 30 days for calling him a fool (in a public restroom, not in court) — which is self-evidently true. http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/judge-reprimanded-f...