Tag: Arizona

State courts come under legislative assault

State legislators are trying to politicize their judiciaries for short-term gain. Courts, their users, and the public must speak up to stop them.

The first weeks of the 2021 legislative session have seen an extraordinary number of proposals to overhaul the selection of judges or otherwise affect the composition of state judiciaries. Among them:

In Montana, Senate Bill 140 would eliminate the state’s judicial nominating commission, giving the governor direct appointment power over district court judges and state supreme court justices. The nominating commission, in place for nearly half a century, was expressly implemented to depoliticize the judicial appointment process. Despite an outpouring of criticism for the proposal, which is widely seen as a partisan gambit by new Governor Greg Gianforte and Republican legislators, the bill passed the legislature last week. If signed by the governor, the bill would make Montana a national outlier in its refusal to use an independent nominating commission.

In Alaska, a very similar bill would eliminate the role of the state’s nominating commission for the appointment of judges on the district courts and state court of appeals. Senate Bill 14 was introduced by Republican senator Mike Shower in late January. As in Montana, the bill has been panned as “a concerted strategy to dismantle Alaska’s system of selecting judges based on merit and replace it with a process that relies primarily on politics.” Alaska’s Chief Justice, Joel Bolger, similarly criticized the bill as undermining a well-established and respected judicial selection process. Continue reading “State courts come under legislative assault”

Arizona courts adopt new platform for handling digital evidence

The Arizona court system is adopting a modern digital platform to help streamline virtual hearings, according to this story in Government Technology. The platform will include a digital evidence center capable of holding all relevant digital evidence — from police body cam footage to data collected from smartphones — in a single place. The platform will also allow digital evidence to be collected, digitized, and shared remotely.

Election 2020: a quick state court roundup

Even with all eyes trained on the Presidential election, voters in more than thirty states also cast ballots this week for (or against) state judges. Here are some of the preliminary stories coming out of Election Day:

In both Dallas County and Harris County, Texas, Democrats swept the contested judicial races, making it yet another election cycle in which a single party has taken control of the state judiciary in Texas’s two largest metro areas. In North Carolina, a party sweep of another type took place, with Republican judicial candidates winning each of their judicial races. Neither case should be seen as good news. Party sweeps strip the courts of critical judicial experience, replacing it only with a partisan fetish that a judge with an (R) or a (D) next to his name will rule in a certain way. If the judges are fair, the partisans are more often than not disappointed by some case outcomes. And if the judges give the partisans what they want every time, the integrity of the judiciary is compromised. (Just a thought: perhaps it is finally time to eliminate partisan judicial elections altogether.)

In Illinois, for the first time, a sitting supreme court justice lost his retention bid. A little less than 57% of voters chose to retain Justice Thomas Kilbride, but under the state’s unique rules, at least 60% of voters needed to favor retention for Kilbride to keep his seat. Thus we have the unusual circumstance in which a judge whom most voters wanted to retain nevertheless will have to leave the bench. (The unusual nature of Illinois’s judicial retention system has an equally unusual history, which I might try to unpack in a future blog post.)

In Tampa, Florida, a state trial judge who lost his primary race in August pushed the state supreme court not to certify this week’s judicial election results. The judge is arguing that the current state law allows judicial races to be settled in the primaries, whereas the state constitution requires that they be decided during the November general election.

And in Arizona (where ballots are still being counted as of this writing), the Maricopa County Democratic Party campaigned against the retention of two state trial judges, including the only Native American judge on the Maricopa County Superior Court. Both targeted judges were deemed by the state’s independent Commission on Judicial Performance Review to have met performance standards. Unlike Illinois, a simple majority in favor of retention is enough to keep the judges on the bench.

Rural Arizonans choose merit selection

Arizona’s constitution requires that counties with a population over 250,000 must select their superior court judges using a merit selection model: judges are appointed by the governor based upon recommendations from a nonpartisan nominating commission, and then subject to periodic retention elections. Smaller counties, by contrast, typically elect their judges in contested elections.

But citizens in these smaller population counties may opt into the merit selection process by approving the change during a general election. And that is exactly what Coconino County voters did last week. It marks the first time that a rural Arizona county has chosen merit selection over the standard, party-affiliated election system. Coconino County Judge Dan Slayton provides more detail on the change at the IAALS Blog.

I applaud the move!

Post-election judicial roundup

Many states had judges and issues affecting the judiciary on their ballots this week. Here are some of the more noteworthy outcomes from several western states:

In California, state supreme court Associate Justice Carol Corrigan was retained by voters by about a 2-1 margin. Corrigan had been the target of an anti-retention campaign by several LGBT groups, who took issue with her dissent in the state supreme court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage in 2008. Happily, most voters (regardless of how they felt about that case) properly viewed that opinion in the context of hundreds that Justice Corrigan has issued over her judicial career.

In Alaska, Judge Michael Corey was not nearly as lucky. In a situation reminiscent of the mob that removed Judge Aaron Persky in California earlier this year, Judge Corey was targeted for non-retention by a group calling itself “No More Free Passes.” The group took issue with Judge Corey’s decision to approve a “no jail time” plea deal for a man accused of strangling a woman until she fell unconscious, and then masturbating on her. The problem for the prosecutors and for Judge Corey was that this sickening act does not qualify as a sex crime under Alaska law. Consistent with existing law, the district attorney proposed a plea deal that allowed the defendant to walk away without jail time, and Judge Corey approved it.

It’s not hard to see why this decision would raise anger about the state of the law, and mobilize people to change it. But instead, Judge Corey became the target, and “No More Free Passes” ran a successful social media campaign to prevent his retention. This despite his excellent performance review (which was issued before the plea deal was approved).

The leader of “No More Free Passes” admitted that its removal of Judge Corey was largely symbolic, and that its main focus was on changing the law. In a Facebook post, she stated that the group “will no longer be discussing Mr. Corey…. We wish him nothing but the best in his future.” That is cold comfort for an excellent judge whose only fault was following the law. Congratulations to “No More Free Passes” on destroying a judge’s career purely as an act of symbolism. I hope you sleep well at night.

In Colorado, voters narrowly defeated Amendment W, which would have streamlined the judicial retention ballot in future elections. A majority of voters supported the amendment, but “yes” votes did not meet the 55% supermajority threshold required for passage.

Out of more than 100 judges on the Colorado retention ballot, two were not retained by voters. Both judges had received poor performance evaluations from Colorado’s official JPE program.  Several other judges were targeted by anti-retention groups or individuals, but  had received strong performance evaluations and were comfortably retained by voters.

In New Mexico, which uses a mixed judicial selection system (judges must initially run for their seats in contested elections, and afterward face retention), voters radically overhauled the state court of appeals. Four new judges were elected–all women, and all Democrats–giving women eight of the ten seats on the court. Another court of appeals judge, Michael Vigil, left his seat to run for the state supreme court, and handily defeated incumbent Gary Clingman. Vigil’s seat will be filled by gubernatorial appointment. The only male judge left on the court, Judge J. Miles Hanisee, was retained by a comfortable margin.

New Mexico voters were also asked to “clear the bench” of judges by an anonymous group starting early this year. While the movement had little impact on the state’s appellate and district courts, four Metropolitan Court judges failed to reach the 57% threshold for retention. Of the four who were not retained, two were not recommended for retention by the state’s judicial performance evaluation commission. Two other judges who likewise were not recommended for retention just squeaked over the retention threshold, with 57.15% and 57.02% of the vote, respectively.

In Arizona, state supreme court Justice Clint Bollick was comfortably retained by voters despite an anti-retention effort funded by the National Education Association.

And in Texas, one of only two states that permits voters to simply vote a straight party ticket, a Democratic wave unseated nineteen incumbent Republican judges on the state’s  intermediate appellate courts. This party sweep (which is not uncommon in Texas) will lead to two related consequences for the appellate courts. First, a number of highly experienced judges are now out of a job. Second, the learning curve for the new judges will take time. I do not envy anyone with cases pending in those courts over the next several months, as an entirely new judiciary gets it feet wet.

UPDATE 11/16/18: The post has been revised to reflect the Colorado supermajority requirement for Amendment W.