Simply stated, judges shouldn't be candidates

Aram James' article on the temerity of judicial candidates to answer the tough questions on controversial issues misses the point. ["Are judicial elections a fraud on voters?" June 11]. Simply stated, judges should not be candidates. While I am thankful they many candidates for a judgeship do not solicit funds to campaign (bringing with it all kinds of potential conflicts), the lack of campaigning also means a lack of knowledge on the part of the voters. It is bad enough that 300,000 Californians are sufficiently uninformed to vote for Leeland Yee. In the last judicial race, there was a total paucity of information available about the competing judges (other than the L.A. Times' opinions). A judge should be appointed and should be allowed to remain on the bench as long as he or she appropriately does the job. The last thing we need is to remove a judge because a correct decision may be an unpopular one (i.e., Judge Alfred Gitelson) or because the judge's name is unusual (Judge Dzintra Janavs).