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In an editorial Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer praised Merit Selection as a good solution to the problems inherent in electing judges:

What citizens already have decided about judicial elections is that they’re confusing at best, with legal qualifications playing a minimal role in who wins. At their worst, judicial elections are tainted by what Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille calls the “corrosive effect of money.” An appointed judiciary with voter oversight is the remedy.

The editorial also pointed out the errors of those who claim Merit Selection would take something away from the voters:

Opponents of the merit-based appointment system argue that it disenfranchises voters. But the hybrid approach proposed for Pennsylvania would give voters their say.

Once appointed, Supreme Court justices – and judges on the Commonwealth and Superior Courts – all would have to pass muster with voters after an initial period on the bench. To continue in office, these judges would have to win a yes/no retention election. . . .

Of course, the switch to an appointed system requires voter approval through a constitutional amendment, once the General Assembly approves a plan over two legislative sessions. “So part of our pitch is: Let people vote,” says Lynn A. Marks of the Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts reform group. Indeed, how can critics of merit selection deny voters their input?

That’s a question we would love to hear answered.

The editorial is worth a full read, because it offers a good recap of the reasons we need to find a new way of selecting appellate court judges.  We hope the people of Pennsylvania will get the opportunity to decide whether to do so.

A recent editorial in Mobile’s Press-Register discusses judicial salaries, standards of quality and requirements for getting a seat on Alabama’s appellate bench. To ensure that the quality of the judges on the bench consistently matches their relatively high salaries, the paper suggests abandoning judicial elections and switching to Merit Selection.

[T}o improve the quality of the appellate courts... switch to a Missouri-style system of judicial appointment and voter retention. Choosing judges in nasty, lavishly financed partisan elections demeans the courts and discourages well-qualified people from pursuing a position on the appellate bench. If the state adopted the merit selection process included in the Missouri Plan, it's unlikely that judicial pay would outpace judicial quality.

Alabama is gearing up for an expensive state supreme court race this Fall, funded primarily by groups and individuals that spend a lot of time in court. We join with the Press-Register in the hope that the state will abandon big-money judicial elections, and make the switch to Merit Selection.

During a recent trip to Memphis, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen expressed his continued commitment to renewing the “Tennessee Plan” for Merit Selection of the state’s judges. Governor Bredesen acknowledged that the current plan isn’t perfect, but he believes in it, and he’s working to preserve it.

The preservation of the Tennessee Plan is the vastly more important thing to me than any messing around or fooling around with the mechanics of the selection. I’d like to see it opened up. I’d like to see something like some additional selections… but preservation of the Tennessee Plan is a must-do for the state.

The governor also noted that other state officials, including Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and Tennessee House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, support renewal of the Plan.

Memphis attorney Buck Lewis also expressed his opinion that the Tennessee Plan should be renewed. Lewis is the new president of the Tennessee Bar Association, and is a former judicial candidate that the governor had previously refused to nominate. But on the importance of the Tennessee plan, Lewis and Bredesen see eye to eye. “If you care about diversity and quality on our state’s appellate courts, you ought to care about us retaining the Tennessee Plan,” Lewis said.

It’s good to know that these officials are committed to preserving Merit Selection of judges in Tennessee. We wish them the best of luck.

Sometimes real stories are stranger than fiction and illustrate the problems with electing judges better than any scenario we could imagine. Here are some true horror stories drawn from current judicial elections in other states. We wish we could say this is a one-time feature, but we’re pretty sure we’ll have more horror stories to share as the campaign season continues.

Our first example comes from North Carolina where Bill Belk has decided to get back at the judge who ruled against him many times during his long and costly divorce. How? By running for that judge’s seat! There has been very little news about the race since the Observer article was published in June. But Belk is still on the ballot in an effort, in his own words, “to reform the system.” His claim doesn’t sound convincing to voters, one of whom dismisses Belk as a “rich guy with a law degree but little legal experience” who is clearly running a revenge campaign.

Case number 2 makes us wonder: does running for a judicial election make a person sacrifice the long-term friendships of those who won’t donate to the campaign? It appears so in Kansas, where Reginald Davis, seeking to be a county judge, texted the following message to some attorneys who were friends of his:

If you are truly my friend then you would cut a check to the campaign! If you do not then its time I checked you. Either you are with me or against me!

An ultimatum in quasi-military language? A physical threat? Someone so desperate to win the election that he’ll risk losing friendships? Davis has been ordered to cease and desist soliciting campaign contributions personally. And the text message was found to have violated part of the Kansas Code of Judicial Conduct.

Judicial elections require lots of money. Belk has it and that’s why he can run for an office for which he is likely unqualified and in which he’s not all that interested, and it’s what Davis needs to be able to run. As these real life stories show, money and judicial selection just shouldn’t mix.

Late last week, Governor Rendell nominated a new slate to fill interim vacancies on Pennsylvania’s appellate courts. From early reports, it seems likely that the new slate — Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan for the Supreme Court, Northampton County President Judge Robert A. Freedberg and McKean County President Judge John M. Cleland for Superior Court, and Philadelphia lawyer Johnny J. Butler for Comonwealth Court — will be confirmed in the near future. This follows months of political wrangling and the Senate’s rejection of the Governor’s first slate of nominees.

PMC/PMCAction Executive Director Lynn Marks warns: “This interim appointment process should not be confused with what is known as a merit selection system just because both require nomination by the Governor and Senate confirmation. . . . They are both very different and the jockeying we have seen for the last few months is another example of why we should change the way we appoint appellate judges.”

Merit Selection of judges in Tennessee involves a 3-part system of Merit Selection, judicial performance evaluation, and retention elections. Judges are nominated for gubernatorial appointment by a 17-member Judicial Selection Commission (14 lawyers and 3 non-lawyer citizens). Appellate judges stand for retention election every 8 years.

The Tennessee Plan has been in place since the early 1970s and is also known as the “Modified Missouri Plan.” It’s “winding down” this year, because the Tennessee legislature failed to reauthorize it, mostly because of allegations of too much secrecy in the meetings of the Judicial Selection Commission.

But the way to address the problems is not to scrap the Tennessee Plan and replace it with elections, says Governor Phil Bredesen — and we agree. Tennessee risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As Governor Bredesen suggests, perceived problems of secrecy and alleged “back-room dealing” can be addressed by amending the statute to require additional public meetings of the Commission. As the Governor explains, putting a worse system in place is not the answer:

The issue is that when you have state-wide elections, basically for appellate judges, the only people who care about those are people with very narrow special interests. They’re expensive elections because they’re state-wide, and I just think you’d have this scramble to have, you know, every interest out there whether it be business or trial lawyers or anybody else trying to elect their judges and we’d have a vastly worse system than we have today.

The problem in Tennessee isn’t secret meetings in smoke-filled rooms. That flimsy accusation is mostly a “smokescreen” itself for the special interests who seek to inject even more politics — and potentially millions of dollars — into Tennessee’s judicial selection system.

Despite our best efforts, Merit Selection opponents persist in spreading misinformation about what Merit Selection is, how it works and why supporters wish to implement it for Pennsylvania’s appellate courts.

Opponents latch onto buzzwords like “democracy” while totally ignoring that democracy includes giving the public the chance to weigh in on important issues like how we select appellate judges. Those who think about these issues understand that you can’t cloak yourself as a protector of democratic values while fighting against allowing the people to decide the best way to select appellate judges.

It’s not democratic to block a public referendum on a critical issue of governance and deprive the people of the opportunity to vote on the question. It’s not democratic to scare the public into thinking the issue at hand is something different than a choice about whether to change the process for picking judges.

Reasonable people can and do disagree about how Pennsylvania should choose appellate judges. We’re ready and willing to engage in discussion and debate about this, for education is the only way to make an informed decision on this critical issue.

We urge you to be part of these discussions and to beware of misinformation, especially when it comes cloaked in pretty language about democracy.

Listen to Lynn Marks, Executive Director of PMC and PMCAction, discuss Merit Selection and the reasons we need to change the way we select appellate court judges on Lincoln Radio Journal. Talking with host Lowman Henry, Marks discussed the problems inherent in judicial elections, the benefits of Merit Selection, and the need to get this issue before the public.

Although change comes slowly in Pennsylvania, especially when it involves amending the constitution, it’s nice to know that we’re not alone in worrying about judicial elections. It’s a common concern in states that elect their appellate judges, especially as the fundraising associated with judicial campaigns continues to rise. Folks in Alabama, Wisconsin and West Virginia have been raising similar concerns this campaign season. They are concluding that Merit Selection is a better way to pick appellate court judges.

Recently, we posted about a Texas Supreme Court decision that was drawing headlines because all nine of the justices had accepted campaign contributions from the winning party. Now, another Texas court decision is making news for similar reasons.

An appeals court in Texas recently overturned a verdict against a large drug company. What’s raising eyebrows is the fact that all three of the judges on the panel have taken campaign donations from law firms representing the victorious defendant.

The reaction of the attorney representing the plaintiff underscores the big-money problem with judicial elections. From the AP story:

[Attorney W. Mark Lanier] said the ruling demonstrates that Texas should not have elected judges, asserting it was “outrageous” that all three judges on the appellate panel took campaign contributions from law firms involved in defending Merck.

Would you want to go to court, knowing that the lawyer or law firm you were up against had given money to the presiding judge or judges? It’s understandable that litigants in such circumstances are concerned that campaign contributions may influence verdicts. The problem is not whether or not there is such an influence; the perception that there could be reduces public confidence in the courts and undermines the judicial process.

It’s time for Pennsylvania to remove campaign money from the judicial equation. We can do this by adopting Merit Selection for the appellate courts.