judgesonmerit.org

What About Clients? for a post today entitled: “Is that an elected county judge in your pocket or are you just hugely happy to see me?”  The post recaps many good reasons to stop electing judges and switch to a Merit Selection system.  Here’s the core argument:

The popular election of state judges–permitted in some aspect in a clear majority of the states–give the appearance of justice being “for sale”. Elected judges can be especially “bad” for good clients who do business all over the U.S. and the world. Even when elected judges are “good”–and, to be fair, there are some great ones–state systems of popularly-elected judiciary will never inspire much confidence. Elected jurists who hear and decide business disputes are steeped in a taint.

The point: Judges should not have “constituents”, i.e. law firms, and their clients, who make campaign contributions. Right now, in most American states, they do. And there is no way to dress that up.

Well, that makes sense to us.  As Pennsylvania enters general election season, with 8 appellate court seats being contested, now is a good time to ask why we are still electing judges.

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