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The Philadelphia Inquirer today called for judicial selection reform, arguing that “The case for reforming the way Pennsylvania selects its judges keeps getting stronger.”  Citing PMC’s analysis of the fundraising and spending in the 2009 Supreme Court election, the editorial focuses on the poisonous role of money in judicial elections:

It’s the troubling influence of campaign fund-raising that continues to create the most concern about electing judges in head-to-head partisan contests.

Most Pennsylvanians say they suspect that justice is for sale because candidates for judgeships have to raise campaign funds. The big-spending 2009 Supreme Court election between Republican Joan Orie Melvin and Democrat Jack Panella did nothing to restore their fraying faith in an impartial judiciary.

The Inquirer urges action, and we hope the call is heeded:

The course for state policymakers is clear: Step in and reform judicial selection, or continue to preside over a system that erodes public confidence in justice as it’s dispensed in Pennsylvania.

An interesting article in the Times Herald-Record [serving the Hudson Valley and the Catskills) contemplates  how the recent conviction of a former New York state judge for attempted bribery may be used to advance the cause of judicial selection reform.

Former New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Spargo was being investigated for improper conduct during his election campaign.  With defense fees mounting, Spargo allegedly began soliciting lawyers practicing before him for contributions to his defense fund.  As the article explains, one such solicitation involved Spargo telling lawyer Bruce Blatchly that he oversaw several of Blatchly's pending cases and that a friend of Spargo's was presiding over Blatchly's own divorce: "The commission [on Judicial Conduct] didn’t see that as a solicitation. They saw it as a shakedown.”  Spargo was removed from the bench in 2006 and then faced federal charges of attempted extortion and bribery. He was convicted by a jury last week.

What does this have to do with judicial selection reform? Well, the article posits that Blatchly’s experience is very relevant to the problem of money in judicial elections:

There’s a school of thought that says similar “pay or suffer” or “pay, and reap the benefits” messages can be sent when you have judges running for office and their surrogates solicit for campaign contributions from lawyers who appear before those very same judges. Judges aren’t allowed to personally solicit for campaign contributions. They’re not even supposed to know who’s contributing to their campaigns through their campaign committees, although that information is readily available online and as one local judge once put it, “I’m not supposed to know, but you guys keep putting it in the paper.”

Certainly, extortion and bribery are very different from campaign fundraising. But as the article notes, “Bruce Blatchly’s testimony, about how it felt to be hit up for money on behalf of the same judge who had Blatchly’s fate in his hands,” has a certain resonance when it comes to the issue of judicial campaigns raising money from lawyers who are likely to appear before the judge in the future.