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Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts today called for swift action following the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review‘s report that Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin is the target of a grand jury investigation focused on the improper use of judicial and legislative staff for her election campaigns. PMC has called for Justice Orie Melvin to temporarily step down or face suspension by the Supreme Court.  AS PMC Executive Director Lynn A. Marks explained, “All citizens, including judges are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but judges and especially Supreme Court justices should not be permitted to judge others while under the cloud of such a serious investigation.”

PMC also called on the Legislature to amend the state constitution to end election of appellate judges in Pennsylvania.  As PMC Deputy Director Shira J. Goodman explained:

 Judicial elections require candidates to campaign, politick, and fundraise, eliminating the distinction between them and politicians. Judicial elections are designed to pick the best campaigners and fundraisers. We need a system that is designed to get the most qualified, fair and impartial judges on the bench. . . . PMC calls on the legislature to. . .  give the people of Pennsylvania the opportunity to decide whether there is a better way to select appellate judges.

Tennessee is leading the fight against corruption in judicial elections.  The state’s Supreme Court has issued a new rule requiring judges to recuse themselves from cases involving campaign supporters.   Judges must now disqualify themselves from any proceeding in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” including when they know or learn that a party or the party’s lawyer have contributed to that judge’s campaign.

This rule shows the growing national awareness of the dangers of money politics in judicial elections.  As the Brennan Center for Justice’s Maria da Silva stated:

The Tennessee Supreme Court should be applauded for taking this important step forward… [The] new, forward-looking rules will help ensure public faith in the court
system, and provide a model for the rest of the nation to follow.  As spending on high court elections continues to skyrocket, judges and litigants need a clear way to address recusal questions related to campaign contributions.

That the Tennessee Supreme Court even had to consider the new rule is another example of how judicial elections are increasingly at risk for corruption or the appearance of corruption which undermine public trust and the rule of law.  The new rule is a good attempt, but the best way to deal with the money problem is to get judges out of the fundraising business.

The local news media is increasingly focused on and frustrated by the situation in Philadelphia’s Traffic Court.  An Inquirer editorial attacked the current system of electing judges stating that:

Philadelphia Traffic Court has provided proof, once again, that the city Democratic Party is immune to the toxic fumes emitted by the clunker candidates it chooses to run for judgeships year after year.  How else can you explain that one newly elected judge, whose only qualification seems to be that she is the 53rd Ward’s leader, couldn’t even pass the judge’s test?

Meanwhile, the Daily News today described the Traffic Court as a “joke” in reference to Judge Willie Singletary’s repeated indiscretions and Judge Michael Sullivan’s removal from his position as Administrative Judge following FBI raids to his home and office.  The editorial pointed to the current system of selecting judges through elections as the primary problem:

Traffic Court and the magisterial district courts are the only two in the state that don’t require its judges to have legal background, otherwise known as ‘actual judicial qualifications.’ It’s simply an elected office and all that implies -meaning the political machine is ultimately in charge of dispensing justice. The fact that winners of this elected office are allowed to call themselves ‘judges’ is a pretty gross miscarriage of what we should expect from justice.  It also adds plenty of fuel to the movement to end the election of judges.

Philadelphia’s Traffic Court, already suffering from bad press due to allegations that Judge Willie Singletary displayed a picture of his genitals to a court employee, experienced a new setback this week. Newly-elected Judge Christine Solomon failed the required examination for Traffic Court and Magisterial District Court judges and was not able to take the oath of office along with other new judges.

Currently, Traffic Court judge elections are based on politics, not competence. To qualify, candidates must be 21 years old and a Philadelphia resident for at least one year. They need no formal legal training but non-attorney judges must complete a one-month preparatory course covering traffic laws and court procedure and pass a two-hour essay and multiple choice test before taking the bench (Judicial Code (42 Pa C.S.A. §3112)). Solomon, a ward leader, benefited from winning the first ballot position and strong support from the party leadership during the primary. In Philadelphia, that was all she needed to win a six-year tenure as a Traffic Court judge along with its $89,000 salary. A retest will be offered on January 31st.

This incident demonstrates that judicial elections are not designed to put the most qualified judges on the bench. There must be a better way.