Tag: death of a judge

West Virginia governor will appoint the judge who will rule in his case

A strange development in West Virginia. State judge Charles King passed away last month, and Governor Jim Justice is charged with appointing his replacement. Interviews will be taking place this week. At the time of his death, Judge King was presiding over a lawsuit in which the Governor was the defendant. The new appointee will take the reins of that suit. Put differently, the Governor will literally be picking the judge in his own case.

While it is common for governors to temporarily fill vacant seats on the bench so that the courts remain at full strength, this situation is plainly awkward. It is all the more so because of the efforts in the mid-2000s of Massey Coal Company to heavily finance the election of Brent Benjamin to the state supreme court; Benjamin would later cast the deciding vote in Massey’s favor in a major case pending before that court.

Governor Justice must carry out his appointment responsibilities, but he would be well-served by including extra transparency in the process — for his sake, the new judge’s sake, and the sake of long-term public confidence in the state judiciary.

Three New York judges die from COVID-19

Sad, if likely inevitable, news: COVID-19 deaths are now directly impacting the judiciary. Yesterday, New York state officials reported that 168 state court employees had contracted the novel coronavirus, including 17 state judges. At least three of those judges — all in their mid-60s — have now died from the virus.

Aside from the personal loss and grief that comes from the sickness and death of colleagues and coworkers, the New York court system now finds itself with fewer human resources to keep up with its work. Already the system (like all court systems) has slowed its pace and transitioned at least in part to video and teleconferencing, but the attrition in the internal workforce with complicate matters even further. There are likely to be ripple effects throughout the criminal and civil justice systems as judges, court staff, attorneys, parties, and witnesses battle the disease personally and in relation to their families and friends.

In Memoriam: Mark Cady

The legal world has been shocked by the sudden death of Iowa Chief Justice Mark Cady on Friday. Chief Justice Cady joined the Iowa Supreme Court in 1998 and became Chief Justice in 2011. He was best known for authoring the court’s unanimous opinion in Varnum v. Brien (2009), which declared that prohibitions on same-sex marriage were barred by the Iowa Constitution. Voter dissatisfaction with that decision led to three of Cady’s colleagues not being retained the following year, which (ironically) opened the door for Cady to become Chief Justice in 2011.

Chief Justice Cady is being remembered as a splendid jurist and a dedicated public servant. That was certainly my impression of him on the one occasion I was able to meet him. The court system and public have lost a thoughtful, compassionate, and highly intelligent judge and leader.

The Iowa Supreme Court will take the time to appropriately grieve the loss of its chief justice (and indeed, it has already postponed oral arguments scheduled for this week). At some point, however, the court will also need to turn back to the more mundane task of filling his seat. Members of the court will choose the new chief justice themselves, but not until a new justice has been appointed. That process involves initial review of candidates by a 17-member nominating commission, with the final selection in the hands of the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds. The Des Moines Register has a good primer on the process here.

Deepest condolences to the family and friends of Chief Justice Cady.

Dead judges cannot decide cases

That was the recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Yovino v. Rizo, a case decided at the end of February. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had issued its opinion, which included the vote of Judge Stephen Reinhardt, eleven days after Reinhardt passed away in March 2018. The Ninth Circuit panel justified the decision to include Reinhardt’s vote by noting:

“Prior to his death, Judge Reinhardt fully participated in this case and authored this opinion. The majority opinion and all concurrences were final, and voting was completed by the en banc court prior to his death.”

The Supreme Court disagreed, explaining that federal judges “are appointed for life, not for eternity.”

Donald Scarinci has a nice breakdown of the opinion and the underlying case in The Observer.