judgesonmerit.org

During the past few months, we’ve been following stories from the campaign trails in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia and other states electing judges.  Our focus has been on campaign spending — where the money comes from and where it goes, what the candidates are saying, and the public reaction to the campaigns.  If you’re looking for  information about who won each election, visit Gavel Grab for a good collection of articles about all the races as well as Justice At Stake’s  press release on the elections.

In addition, the American Judicature Society has issued a press release about how voters in four counties — two in Alabama, one each in Kansas and Missouri, have voted in favor of Merit Selection.  These voters were given the chance to decide whether or not to change the way they selected their judges.  In three cases, they changed from elections to Merit Selection; in the fourth, they rejected a proposal to replace a  Merit Selection system with judicial elections.

We hope Pennsylvanians will soon get the same opportunity to decide whether or not to change how we select appellate court judges.

Gordon L. Doerfer, president of the American Judicature Society (AJS), has issued a statement in response to the Wall Street Journal’s most recent attack on Merit Selection. In this statement, AJS sets the record straight about the composition of judicial nominating commissions and the history of success of state Merit Selection systems.

AJS points out that the Journal’s recent characterization of the Florida and Missouri nominating commissions as dominated by plaintiffs’ trial lawyers is wrong. In fact, lawyers of all types are involved in selecting or suggesting lawyer members of these commissions. AJS goes on to explain that a recent survey of corporate attorneys revealed that they rank state courts selected through Merit Selection uniformly higher than state courts selected by partisan elections. It is a myth that judicial nominating commissions are dominated by a particular constituency or segment of the bar.  In fact, most nominating commissions include several seats for nonlawyers.

The cornerstone of Merit Selection is the use of a nominating commission to screen and evaluate candidates. This is the special element lacking in both elective and purely appointive systems.

A blanket condemnation of judicial nominating commissions is irresponsible and misleading. It also demeans the work of the dedicated commissioners, all of whom serve without compensation, and calls into questions the judgment of the many governors of all political parties who rely upon them to nominate the best qualified judges.

Thanks, AJS, for setting the record straight about judicial nominating commissions.