Look, if you aren’t sure you need to watch this, check out the picture: yes, that’s a judge who not only named his kid after a legal concept, but then misspelled it.

Turning over the power to sentence someone, sometimes to death, to a petty politician who needs to look like Roy Bean — if not Judge Dredd — to stay in the good graces of an ill-informed electorate would be a joke if it weren’t an accurate description of most state judicial systems. Law protects people on either side of a dispute from the tyranny of the mob, or so goes the official line of the sort of people who idolize Atticus Finch. If there were anything connecting that idealism to reality, that worldview gets blowed up but good when large swaths of this country select their judges through sound bites and lawn signs aimed at the lowest common denominator.

At least the feds had the good sense to keep judges one step removed from those out there kissing hands and shaking babies.

After coming up with the greatest stand-ins for the Supreme Court ever (and the Supreme Court dogs make a cameo here), HBO’s John Oliver takes aim at the phenomenon of directly elected judges. It isn’t pretty, but it’s hilarious.

And yeah, dill sucks.

Earlier: You Must Watch Dogs Reenact Supreme Court Arguments Right Now