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Advance Indiana tips us off to an effort to expand Indiana’s Merit Selection system.  Indiana’s appellate judges are chosen by Merit Selection, but the county judges are selected in a variety of ways.  There is a move to make the Merit Selection system uniform throughout the state, for all judges.

According to the report, the Judicial Conference of Indiana has written a report advocating the adoption of Merit Selection and is waiting for the Supreme Court’s approval.  Marion County Superior Judge Mark Stoner, co-chair of the Judicial Conference’s strategic planning committee explained why he supports the change:

“[The current system] results in lawyers who have to be already wealthy to run, and the appearance about all these judges raising that much from lawyers,” he said. “We simply don’t want a system where a litigant feels they’ve won or lost because their lawyer gave or didn’t give as much as the other side.”

Although we are advocating Merit Selection only for the appellate courts in Pennsylvania, we understand the concern in Indiana that the problems of money and politics infect even local court races.  Advance Indiana concludes by noting:

Of all the government reform measures the legislature might take up this year, I can think of none more important than merit selection. I hope the legislature ignores the pleadings of self-serving political leaders in both parties and pulls the plug on an outdated and unfair political system for choosing judges. As the Indiana Lawyer warns, “Nothing less than the credibility of our judiciary is at stake.”

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