judgesonmerit.org

A Daily News editorial strongly endorsed Merit Selection of Pennsylvania’s judges.  The paper argued that no litigant can be confident in the fairness and impartiality of the courts when our system of selecting judges requires massive fundraising efforts during judicial campaigns.  Much of this money comes from attorneys, law firms, interested parties likely to appear in court including large corporations and unions, and political parties.

The Daily News also criticized the Commonwealth’s recusal rules as “weak and vague, and requir[ing] only that judges recuse themselves when their ‘impartiality might reasonably be questioned.’” The paper stated that:

Of course, many judges don’t like to think their impartiality should be questioned, and get offended at the suggestion. And since judges aren’t required to recuse themselves from a case involving a campaign contributor, we can’t be sure that justice will always be served.  This is yet another reminder that the state ought to switch to a merit-selection system that at least somewhat insulates judicial selection from politics, as soon as possible.

Merit Selection will require an amendment to the state constitution.  There are Merit Selection bills currently before the legislature to change the system for selecting appellate court judges, and Gov. Corbitt supports the change.  While such a constitutional amendment will take some years to accomplish, the paper points out that the legislature could act now to reform the current recusal rules, as recently happened in Tennessee.

Tennessee recently introduced a rule prohibiting judges from hearing a case if campaign spending by lawyers or litigants might cause the judges’ impartiality to reasonably be questioned, and goes further by requiring judges who decline a recusal request to provide a written explanation. The state also allows litigants to appeal the decision, taking it out of the hands of the judge in question. (In Pennsylvania, judges’ decisions not to recuse can be overturned on appeal. . . But it doesn’t happen often.)”

We agree with the Daily News that the real solution is to get judges out of the fundraising business.  Merit Selection is the way to do this.

The Eufaula Tribune has written an editorial decrying the current state of Alabama’s judicial politics.  The paper reported that it received a note from Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Chuck Malone stating that “For the first time, we have a completely Republican Supreme Court and I am honored to be able to serve the people of Alabama as Chief Justice of that court and to ensure that the rule of law is upheld in our state.”  All nine members of the state supreme court are Republican.  As the editorial says:

Such a partisan court is troublesome, and not because all nine justices are Republican. We’d say the same thing if they were all Democrats.  In actuality, our Supreme Court is more skewed than the oft-liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The words “court” and “skewed” should never be used together.

Alabama is one of six states, Pennsylvania included, that elects all its judges in partisan elections.  Alabama had the second-most expensive state supreme court elections in the nation in 2010.  The Tribune further reported that:

Since 1993, special interest groups vying for control of the court have contributed more than $54 million – nearly twice the amount in any other state – to candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court.  In that period, the once Democrat-controlled nine-member court has become all-Republican.

This flood of contributions and hyper-partisanship undermines the notion of impartial courts wherever judicial elections are the norm.  Merit Selection is designed to produce the most fair, impartial and qualified courts.

The Legal Intelligencer (subscription required) joined Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts by endorsing Merit Selection of Pennsylvania’s appellate judges.  The endorsement followed in the wake of the grand jury investigation of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin for allegedly using state employees to work on her political campaign for the Supreme Court.  The Intelligencer argued that:

Electing judges the same way we elect executive and legislative branch officials ignores the fundamental difference between judges and other officials. Judges are not supposed to represent constituencies, be responsive to popular will or partisan pressure, or make promises about what they will do in office. By contrast, legislators and executive officials are expected to do these things. The result of electing judges like we elect other officials is that the public believes — as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has said — that judges are just politicians in robes.

The paper noted that the skills required to get elected to the Commonwealth’s appellate courts, fundraising, gaining the support of special interest groups, and the receiving the backing of a political party, are not “related to one’s qualifications to serve on the bench.” The editorial stated that Pennsylvanians deserve a fair and impartial judiciary where attorneys and their clients can be confident that the law, not their opposing party’s campaign contributions, will decide the case.

The answer is merit selection for the appellate courts. Merit selection will stop the flow of money from lawyers, law firms, businesses, unions and special interest groups to the judges who will later be deciding their cases. Merit selection will focus on the qualifications of those who wish to serve on the appellate courts and ensure that we have experienced, wise, ethical judges staffing our appellate bench. Merit selection will provide opportunities for talented lawyers from all over Pennsylvania — regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, political connections or access to big funders — to reach the bench. Merit selection will protect the dignity and integrity of our courts and restore public confidence in the judicial branch. Judicial elections not only cannot do this but undoubtedly undermine public trust and confidence in the judiciary.

Currently, Merit Selection legislation is pending before the legislature.  If passed, the voters of Pennsylvania will eventually be able to decide whether to amend the state constitution and have our appellate judges chosen based on qualifications, not money or politics.  Please contact your state representatives and senators and tell them now is the time to pass Merit Selection.

The Chicago Journal outlined the process for judicial selection in Cook County, Illinois as follows: “The Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Cook County buys judges with the promise of votes, naming them to the party’s official slate in exchange for implicit support.” Being named to the slate is key in winning any judicial election as few voters have any information on a potential judge’s qualifications other than their party identification.  The Journal called for public funding of judicial elections to reduce the corruption inherent in a system where interested parties and attorneys are able to buy favorable court outcomes each election year.  The paper stated that this should be an intermediate step:

[W]e must demand that the state legislature and governor pass legislation at least to support public funding of judicial elections. Merit selection of judges would be better still, but public funding would lessen corruption immediately.

In an editorial today, the Philadelphia Inquirer urges the legislature to act on pending Merit Selection legislation.  Although the paper has supported Merit Selection for a long time, the impetus for the call today was the pending investigation of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin for improper use of her judicial staff for her judicial election campaigns.  The editorial first echoes PMC’s calls for Justice Orie Melvin to temporarily step down from her duties on the Court.   The editorial then explains:

The allegations alone ought to be enough to shake the public’s faith in the state’s system of electing its most powerful judges.

No matter what the outcome of the inquiry into the Orie sisters, the state judiciary would not have to weather such controversy if its top judges were chosen through a merit-based system of appointment, with voters’ concurrence through nonpartisan retention elections. . . .

With the Melvin controversy bringing renewed attention to Pennsylvania’s discredited system of electing judges, Harrisburg officials should seize the moment and move ahead on judicial reform.

We agree, and we hope the people of Pennsylvania will be given the chance to decide for themselves whether there is a better way to select appellate court judges.

The Scranton Times-Tribune published a January 14th editorial calling on the Pennsylvania Legislature to enact merit selection of state appellate judges.  This move was prompted by the delivery of a target letter to Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin.  The Times-Tribune echoed PMC’s call for Justice Melvin to step down pending the grand jury investigation or be removed by her colleagues.  The editorial stated that:

Even if the justice is not charged, however, the case to which the target letter is related already is a cry for sweeping reform of how appellate judges are selected in Pennsylvania.

The paper reported that Justice Melvin’s campaign for the high court was the most expensive for a single seat on the Court in state history with each candidate raising over $2 million, most of which came from parties with “frequent interests in the courts” such as unions, businesses, attorneys, and political parties.  The Times-Tribune cited the rising costs of judicial elections and the large spending by “ideological third parties” aimed at influencing state voters on issues other than judicial competence as the reasons why the Legislature must act now to mitigate the effects of politics and money on the state courts.

This issue has festered for years as the price of judicial elections has escalated, and ideological third parties have spent heavily to influence voters on political matters unrelated to judicial competence.  No one pretends that a merit selection would be perfect. Politics never can be eradicated from the process.  But politics can be mitigated, and qualifications emphasized, through a merit selection process that ends the need to raise funds, craft political alliances and rely on parties that frequently have business with the courts.  Since a lengthy process is required to effect the required constitutional change, the Legislature should move quickly so that the case involving the Ories is the last of its kind.

Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts have consistently advocated for merit selection of appellate judges and ending the Commonwealth’s money-fueled, partisan judicial elections.

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.

An editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer uses the case of a Philadelphia Traffic Court as evidence of the problems inherent in electing judges.  Traffic Court Judge Willie Singletary is in trouble, and as the editorial points out, it’s not the first time.

Judge Singletary, who was already sentenced to a reprimand and probation by the Court of Judicial Discipline for violations during his campaign that included direct solicitation of contributions and seeming to promise favorable outcomes in exchange for donations, has now been escorted out of of Traffic Court following allegations that he showed naked pictures of himself to a City employee doing work related to Traffic Court.   And, before he was elected to Traffic Court, Singletary had amassed huge traffic fines ($11,500) and had his driver’s license suspended.  This history prompted the following observation by the Inquirer:

Beyond suggesting an ability to empathize with the plight of drivers in similar straits, Singletary’s resumé hardly stands as an endorsement for Pennsylvania’s system of electing judges. It’s also a condemnation of the vetting process of the city’s dominant Democratic Party, to which many judicial candidates must pay fealty – and a hefty donation – for its help on Election Day.

We’ve long known that judicial elections reward fundraising prowess, campaign skill, and other attributes that are unrelated to one’s ability to serve as a judge.  Pennsylvanians deserve a system of choosing judges that is designed to get the most qualified, fair and impartial judges on the bench.  Judicial elections are not the way.

As we noted earlier this week, there is some talk in Virginia of changing the way judges are selected. Currently, they are appointed by the legislature.  An editorial in the dailypress.com approves of the Lieutenant Governor’s proposal to use a commission-based appointment system and outlines the benefits of nominating commissions:

Judges should not be politicians. A commission-based selection process by a broad-based group that examines the experience and credentials of candidates, conducts interviews and evaluates candidates’ fitness for service is more likely to produce an impartial and well-qualified judiciary than elections or legislative appointments.  A system that also includes retention votes makes judges accountable to the people at large for upholding the standards of integrity and conduct required by the position.

These are some of the very reasons we believe Pennsylvanians should consider implementing a Merit Selection system for the appellate courts.  We hope the people of Pennsylvania will soon have the opportunity to weigh in on this issue.

A recent article in the Texas Tribune discusses the potential in statewide judicial elections for candidates to be selected based on criteria no less superficial than the ethnic indicia a name provides.

The article, titled “The Cues Voters Use to Elect Unknown Candidates,” argues that “voters choose dozens of important state officials in every election without knowing a thing about them. So they rely on other cues — like political affiliations, pleasing names and who knows what else.” The article runs through some of the results of recent Texas appellate court elections, and tries to reconstruct the reasoning voters might have employed when making their selections.

Noting that the preeminent quality that voters in Texas are looking for is a “Republican ‘R’ behind [a candidate’s] name”, the article proposes that the real contest for officials occurs in the G.O.P. primary in March, giving even less time for voters to actually understand a candidate and make an informed choice, and leaving far less relevant qualities of candidates to serve as deciding factors.

The article poses the question, “When little else is known about two candidates in a G.O.P. primary, is a Hispanic surname a liability?” The judicial race in which Stephen Wayne Smith was victorious against Xavier Rodriguez for a spot on the Texas Supreme Court is used as an illustrative example. Little was known about either candidate going into the election. What, then, did the voters rely upon when making their choice? Names were all the public had available to them in the voting booth; it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether names decided the race.

When we elect judges in contested elections, we unconsciously – or consciously, as the case may be – impose our own biases and agendas onto the concept of justice, something that should be set wholly apart from politics, prejudices, and ideology. A judiciary must serve the people, but a judge’s fitness to serve should be determined by his or her ability to interpret the law and see that justice is fairly administered – not the ability to win votes, and certainly not by factors as inconsequential as a surname.