judgesonmerit.org

Yet another reason why judges and elections should not mix, brought to our attention by our friends over at GavelGrab: In 2008, Michael Gabelman, then a Wisconsin Circuit Court judge, ran a television ad against his opponent, a then-sitting justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Louis Butler, Jr. The ad was, at best, deceptive.  A three-judge panel that heard arguments in the case on Wednesday is trying to decide whether the statements in the ad, put together, constituted an outright lie.  The facts of the case, in short, via the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:

A month before the election, Gableman ran an ad about a case Butler worked on as a public defender involving child sex offender Reuben Lee Mitchell.

“Butler found a loophole. Mitchell went on to molest another child,” the ad said. It then questioned whether the public would be safe with Butler on the court.

Unmentioned in the ad was that Butler won the appeal, but the Supreme Court ruled that errors in the case were not sufficient to overturn the conviction. Mitchell didn’t commit the subsequent crime until he was released on parole.

The Wisconsin Code of Judicial Conduct, like Pennsylvania’s, prohibits false or misleading statements by judicial candidates.

According to Gabelman’s attorney James Bopp, Jr., however, judicial candidates have a right to mislead voters in advertisements, even if it is ill-advised, as long as they are not knowingly misrepresenting information about their opponents. The Journal Sentinel article continues:

“I don’t think misleading is something good, (but) it can’t be sanctioned,” he said.

“The discussion, the debate, the issues that are raised, that’s for the voters to settle – not the courts. . .”

Is this why we elect judges in Pennsylvania?  So candidates can do their best to convince the public that their opponents are evil? Call it what you will – deception or lies – is this type of smear campaign an inevitable result of forcing candidates for the bench to run for their positions? It is an unfair burden to ask those meant to be impartial interpreters of the law to justify their qualifications in expensive 30-second sound bites.

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.

To implement a Merit Selection system for the appellate courts requires a constitutional amendment. This requires passage of legislation in two consecutive legislative sessions, followed by a public referendum.

The first step is now underway. Bills containing the proposed text of the amendment, as well as the enabling legislation creating the nominating commission, are currently being considered by committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The text of the proposed amendment and accompanying enabling legislation are available: SENATE BILL No. 1324 and HOUSE BILL No. 2488 (proposed amendment); SENATE BILL No. 1325 and HOUSE BILL No. 2386 (proposed enabling legislation).

A summary of the legislation is available here.

Yesterday, PMC Associate Director Shira Goodman made a presentation about Merit Selection to the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. Goodman spoke on a panel dedicated to The Future of Reform in Pennsylvania and opened her remarks by saying “I’m here to talk to you about why we believe it’s time for Pennsylvanians to decide how they want to pick their appellate judges.” The presentation about the benefits of Merit Selection was well-received, and is being broadcast on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

You can find more coverage on the conference in Philadelphia’s The Bulletin newspaper.

UPDATE: Videos of the conference speakers and panels are now available.

On April 17th, the Missouri state House rejected an effort to radically revise the state’s “Missouri Plan,” which has served as a model for Merit Selection of judges in 30 other states. Proposed changes to the plan would have eliminated the nonpartisan nomination commission, and replaced it with a system controlled entirely by the governor and state legislators.

A broad coalition of community groups, lead by Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts, made it clear to the legislature that the voters of Missouri didn’t want to politicize judicial selection. The state House clearly got the message, and decisively defeated the proposed changes.

The vote caps the most recent skirmish in a long fight to protect Missouri’s Merit Selection system from efforts to make its process more political. We’re glad that the people and legislators of Missouri recognize that nonpartisan, nonpolitical judicial selection is an important part of a fair and impartial justice system.

via Gavel Grab

In the wake of the recent Wisconsin election, U.S. News and Word Report examines the trend toward increasingly contentious judicial elections, and concludes that the “tactics in the Wisconsin race exemplify a broader shift in judicial elections nationwide.”

After months of attack ads, and millions of dollars in third party spending, the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is over. Wisconsin has a new justice. The rest of us have a clear example of why we need to protect selection of appellate judges from elective politics.

Although Wisconsin’s judicial elections are technically non-partisan, support for the candidates lined up neatly along political lines. Incumbent Justice Louis Butler received support from Democrats and labor groups, while challenger Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman’s backing came from Republicans and conservative organizations.

In a race that the Associated press called “one of the state’s nastiest,” outside interest groups on both sides of the political fence spent millions of dollars on advertising. While nobody knows exactly how much money these groups poured into their ads, CNN reports that, as of Monday, more than $3 million had been spent “just on TV ads in the state’s top three media markets: Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay.”

It isn’t just the dollar amount that’s scary. WisPolitics.com’s election blog reports that these groups outspent the candidates themselves 11-to-1 on TV ads. Even the candidates themselves expressed concern that their messages were being overwhelmed by the third-party ad blitz.

Finally, the content and tone of the advertising helped push the race into the media spotlight. Misleading attack ads from both sides prompted the editorial board of the Wisconsin State Journal to forgo endorsing either candidate. Instead, they chose to endorse “a better method of choosing state Supreme Court justices — a method called Merit Selection.”

We hope that the voters and legislators of Pennsylvania will see the wisdom in the State Journal’s declaration that “justice should be blind, but voters should not be blinded by misinformation.” It’s time to remove partisan bickering and big-money politics from selection of appellate judges. It’s time to replace partisan election of Pennsylvania’s appellate judges with Merit Selection.

The Legal Intelligencer’s blog reports that Governor Rendell spoke about the need for Merit Selection during the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division annual meeting Tuesday. The Governor says he supports Merit Selection of appellate judges “because judicial candidates shouldn’t have to raise money from lawyers or potential litigants,” and “the state’s elected system of judges is a terrible system for diversity.”

Governor Rendell is a long-time believer in Merit Selection, and we appreciate his on-going support for the effort to change the way we pick appellate judges.

On Tuesday, March 18th, Pennsylvania Bar Association President Andrew F. Susko issued a statement supporting the move to Merit Selection of appellate judges in Pennsylvania. “The time has come, “Susko said, “to join the majority of states that provide for an appointive process based on judicial qualifications followed by swift voter input in the form of retention elections.” The statement does a wonderful job of summarizing the major problems of our current elective system, and how Merit Selection addresses those flaws.

Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and PMCAction took our campaign for Merit Selection of appellate judges to the State Capitol in Harrisburg today. We held a press conference in the Capitol Rotunda, featuring Senator Jane Earll and Representatives David Steil and Josh Shapiro, all of whom will be sponsoring Merit Selection bills in the state legislature. Senator Anthony Williams, another lead sponsor, wasn’t able to attend the event. The event was moderated by Lynn A. Marks, Executive Director of PMC and PMCAction.

Standing with us to demonstrate support for changing the way we select appellate judges were representatives of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Common Cause Pennsylvania, Justice at Stake, ACLU of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, the Philadelphia Bar Association, the Philadelphia Bar Association, and the Commonwealth Foundation. These organizations are part of a steadily growing coalition in support of judicial selection reform.

We felt great excitement and energy today, and we’re really pleased with the response from the media and the public. If you’d like to see more about the presentation we made, and the benefits of a Merit Selection plan, take a look at the press kit materials.

The Associated Press’ coverage appearing in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader noted “advocates for replacing Pennsylvania’s system of electing appellate judges with an appointive system launched a new effort Tuesday to convince the Legislature that change is needed.” Also reporting on the press conference were Philadelphia’s The Bulletin and The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, which noted that “State Sen. John Pippy thinks the state needs a better way to select judges for its appellate courts.”