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Non-Partisan Court Plan

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jrjones9933
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01 Jul 2011, 8:18 pm

If your state has elected judges, with all the attendant problems, and you worry about the effects on justice, you might want to look at this.

Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan

Quote:
Under the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan, a nonpartisan judicial commission reviews applications, interviews candidates and selects a judicial panel.

With any vacancy, the appropriate commission reviews applications of lawyers who wish to join the court and interviews the applicants. It then submits the names of three qualified candidates – called the “panel” of candidates – to the Missouri governor.

Normally, the governor will interview the three candidates and review their backgrounds before selecting one for the vacancy. If the governor does not appoint one of the three panelists within 60 days of submission, the commission selects one of the three panelists to fill the vacancy.

Once a judge has served in office for at least one year, that judge must stand for a retention election at the next general election. The judge's name is placed on a separate judicial ballot, without political party designation, and voters decide whether to retain the judge based on his or her judicial record. A judge must receive a majority of votes to be retained for a full term of office. The purpose of this vote is to provide another accountability mechanism of the nonpartisan plan to ensure quality judges.


I just picked the highlights off the linked page, but the rest of the plan seems really smart to me. I want this for Texas. Our judges can accept campaign contributions from law firms who try cases in their courts, and from corporate defendants with cases that will soon come before them, evidently with impunity.


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Philologos
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01 Jul 2011, 8:35 pm

Yah, sure. Our local elections every candidate judge describes as "non-partisan".

So, quis custodiet? Where do you find the non-partisans to ensure that the candidates are non-partisan? I am not available - I suspect most real non-partisans are no more willing than I.

A bipartisan, tripartisan, etc. committee will not really ensure a non-partisan judiciary.

Even if it was possible in my judge grandpappy's day, These days the norm seems to be that people go into law or journalism BECAUSE they are partisan.

Medicine may be non-partisan for all I know to the contrary.



jrjones9933
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01 Jul 2011, 9:19 pm

From the linked site:

Quote:
(The Commission) is composed of three lawyers elected by the lawyers of The Missouri Bar (the organization of all lawyers licensed in this state), three citizens selected by the governor, and the chief justice, who serves as chair.


The commissioners and the candidates for judgeship have the same likelihood of having a party affiliation as anyone in the state. The non-partisan element means that the judges aren't elected in partisan elections. They don't have to raise a campaign fund.

Your state's system may work fine, and good for y'all! Texas' system stinks, dude. It won't take much searching to find your own evidence of that, whatever your partisan affiliation. Unless there's a Verdicts to the Highest Bidder Party, of course...


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Jacoby
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01 Jul 2011, 10:01 pm

We already had a thread about this recently. I don't really see how this would make things any better. Qualifications are subjective so in the end, I'd rather the people had a say in the process even if they can be influenced by money(altho it's really overstated) If they're only going to appoint judges that I agree with then sure, okay, but my opinion of a good judge probably differs from yours.

Appointments don't really make sense unless it's a lifetime appointment and even then if there is no direct judicial election, the governor's race turns into a de facto judicial race. It's not like it would take judges out of the political process, just make a whole dog and pony show to make it seem like they're not. I



Inuyasha
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02 Jul 2011, 12:03 am

"Non-partisan" is a relative term, what you would consider "non-partisan", someone else would consider to be very partisan.



jrjones9933
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02 Jul 2011, 6:52 am

Inuyasha wrote:
"Non-partisan" is a relative term, what you would consider "non-partisan", someone else would consider to be very partisan.


Non-partisan means "not affiliated with parties." That's the opposite of partisan, and in no way relative.


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NeantHumain
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02 Jul 2011, 11:14 am

I live in Missouri, and when voting, I often see pages of yes/no options for the various judges on the ballot. Of course, I don't recognize the names, and honestly I end up tending to randomly vote yes or no. The judicial elections tend not to have much advertising (it may actually be forbidden by law), so you'll only know something about it if you follow the judicial system closely, read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's/League of Women Voters' voting guide, or if there happens to be some major scandal involving one of the judges (the Tea Party roused a campaign against the Iowa Supreme Court justices for recognizing civil equality for gay marriage, which isn't a scandal but is pretty rare for judgeships).