judgesonmerit.org

“We put cash in the courtrooms and it’s just wrong.” This is how former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor opened last week’s conference at Fordham Law School studying the judiciary and the courts.

Justice O’Connor has neatly summed up the problem with using partisan elections to select appellate judges. This system requires would-be judges to raise money from lawyers, law firms and other organizations that are likely to appear before them in the future. Who else would be interested enough to fund these increasingly expensive campaigns?

Of course, almost every judge and every contributor says that campaign contributions have no influence in the courtroom. But studies show that the public (and even some judges) believes the opposite to be true. This perception leads to a lack of public confidence in the judiciary and the courts. If the public doesn’t believe that our courts are fair and impartial, the courts can’t effectively serve the public.

Let’s get the cash out of the courtrooms. It’s time for Merit Selection.

As the campaign for Merit Selection progresses, we hear some inaccurate arguments repeated by those who oppose Merit Selection. In an effort to set the record straight, we’ll reveal the truth and clear up these myths.

Myth #1: Merit Selection is Taking Away My Right to Vote for Judges

No one can take away your right to vote. We can only get a Merit Selection system for the appellate courts if the people of Pennsylvania vote for it. This is not something the legislature or Governor can impose on the people. Instead, the people have to vote for it in a referendum.

Additionally, Merit Selection gives the people the ultimate decision about whether a judge stays on the bench. After a judge’s initial four years on the bench, the public votes on whether the judge should be retained. If the judge wins retention, he or she will stand for retention before the public every ten years.

Myth #2: Merit Selection Means a Bunch of Lawyers Will Be Picking Our Appellate Judges

The appellate court nominating commission will be made up of lawyers and non-lawyers. Five public members are appointed by civic groups, unions, business organizations, non-lawyer professional associations, and public safety organizations. These groups can appoint anyone of their choosing — no lawyers required. Also, the Governor is required to include two non-lawyers in his appointments.

There will be a law school dean on the nominating commission, and some lawyers appointed by the Governor and the legislative leaders. But it’s a mix, and like other commissions that currently exist, the non-lawyers will bring a valuable perspective to the screening and evaluation of judicial candidates.

Keep visiting JudgesOnMerit.org to learn the truth about Merit Selection.

On Wednesday, PMC and PMCAction Associate Director Shira Goodman discussed Merit Selection of Pennsylvania’s appellate judges on Legislative Journal, with Representative Barbara McIlvaine Smith, from Chester County’s 156th District. Video of the appearance will be available shortly.

In the wake of the recent Wisconsin election, U.S. News and Word Report examines the trend toward increasingly contentious judicial elections, and concludes that the “tactics in the Wisconsin race exemplify a broader shift in judicial elections nationwide.”

In a letter to the Philadephia Daily News, Philadelphia’s four immediate past City Solicitors (Kenneth I. Trujillo, Nelson A. Diaz, Pedro A. Ramos & Romulo L. Diaz Jr.) and the current City Solicitor (Shelley R. Smith) urge that: “IT’S TIME for Pennsylvania to start picking pick appellate-court judges based solely on proven ability, experience and a reputation for fairness and impartiality.” They believe the way to do this is Merit Selection.

The authors further argue that Merit Selection “opens up pathways to the appellate judiciary that have not always been available” because “all applicants – regardless of political connections, access to financial resources, county of residence, race, ethnicity or gender – would have a chance to be evaluated objectively by a citizen-based nominating commission and, if found qualified, to be on a list of recommended candidates.”

We thank these dedicated public servants for their support.

On Friday, April 4th, Dan Pero of AmericanCourthouse.com posted two items critical of our perspective on judicial selection of appellate judges in Pennsylvania. We’ve said all along that reasonable people can disagree about judicial selection. We started this blog to encourage discussion about the subject, and we’re gratified that Mr. Pero believes the issue to be important. However, we wish he would stop trying to mislead his readers.

In his swipes at Merit Selection, Mr. Pero returns again and again to the same hollow argument. He insists there is a conspiracy afoot to “take away” the right of the citizens of Pennsylvania to vote for appellate judges.

No matter how many times Mr. Pero and other critics of Merit Selection repeat this mantra, no one can take away the current elective system from the citizens of Pennsylvania. The state Constitution can only be amended after the voters pass a referendum to authorize the change. Like other Merit Selection critics, Mr. Pero ignores this fact.

We can only adopt a Merit Selection system for Pennsylvania’s appellate judges if the people of Pennsylvania vote for it. The only thing we want to “take away” from the people is the false impression that anyone can implement Merit Selection in Pennsylvania without popular consent.

Wisconsin Radio Network reports on calls for judicial reform in the aftermath of the state’s contentious Supreme Court race.

Lawyers Need to Make Sure New Merit Selection Proposal Becomes Reality
Copyright 2008, The Legal Intelligencer. Reprinted with permission.
The governor supports it. Several legislative committee chairs support it. The statewide chairs of both major parties reportedly support it. So whose fault will it be if we don’t get merit selection this time around?

Nobody understands better than the legal community the importance of merit selection. Particularly at the appellate level, nobody should be a louder or more vocal or more active supporter of merit selection than we, the users of the system.

Continue Reading »

There’s been a lot of chatter about a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal criticizing those calling for Merit Selection of state judges. The editorial opened with a discussion of John Grisham’s new novel The Appeal, a story about a big corporation trying to influence the outcome of a case by contributing to a judicial election campaign. In response to Grisham’s comments that the novel was being played out in real life examples throughout the country, the editorial moved on to attack Merit Selection.

The editorial asserted: “In a result that might surprise Mr. Grisham, a 2007 Harvard study actually found that judges who are elected directly by voters are overall less corrupt than those who win their robes through other methods of selection.” This is a blatant mischaracterization of both the focus and the conclusions of the 2007 Harvard study.

The study, conducted by James Alt and David Lassen, focused on government corruption. It addressed whether the way judges are picked affects the ability of the judiciary to thwart corruption by the other branches of government. The study did not address judicial corruption, and it certainly didn’t reach conclusions about whether the way judges are selected affects levels of corruption in the judiciary.

The author of the editorial twisted the results of the study to serve her purpose of attacking those who support Merit Selection. In doing so, she misled the readers of the Wall Street Journal.

The facts about the Harvard study were presented to the Wall Street Journal in a letter to the editor authored by Lynn Marks of PMC and PMCAction and Seth Andersen of the American Judicature Society. However, this letter has not (at least as yet) been printed by the Journal.

Reasonable people can and do disagree about how judges should be selected. But reasonable people should make their decisions based on the facts. We trust the people of Pennsylvania to do just that and to vote on whether to change the way we select our appellate judges. What are the critics of Merit Selection so afraid of?

After months of attack ads, and millions of dollars in third party spending, the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is over. Wisconsin has a new justice. The rest of us have a clear example of why we need to protect selection of appellate judges from elective politics.

Although Wisconsin’s judicial elections are technically non-partisan, support for the candidates lined up neatly along political lines. Incumbent Justice Louis Butler received support from Democrats and labor groups, while challenger Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman’s backing came from Republicans and conservative organizations.

In a race that the Associated press called “one of the state’s nastiest,” outside interest groups on both sides of the political fence spent millions of dollars on advertising. While nobody knows exactly how much money these groups poured into their ads, CNN reports that, as of Monday, more than $3 million had been spent “just on TV ads in the state’s top three media markets: Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay.”

It isn’t just the dollar amount that’s scary. WisPolitics.com’s election blog reports that these groups outspent the candidates themselves 11-to-1 on TV ads. Even the candidates themselves expressed concern that their messages were being overwhelmed by the third-party ad blitz.

Finally, the content and tone of the advertising helped push the race into the media spotlight. Misleading attack ads from both sides prompted the editorial board of the Wisconsin State Journal to forgo endorsing either candidate. Instead, they chose to endorse “a better method of choosing state Supreme Court justices — a method called Merit Selection.”

We hope that the voters and legislators of Pennsylvania will see the wisdom in the State Journal’s declaration that “justice should be blind, but voters should not be blinded by misinformation.” It’s time to remove partisan bickering and big-money politics from selection of appellate judges. It’s time to replace partisan election of Pennsylvania’s appellate judges with Merit Selection.