Tag: judicial elections

Weekend tibdits: Dog bites man, 3L runs for judge, Arkansas judges make nice

A few interesting state court stories from the last couple of days:

  • Repairs on a courthouse elevator in Texas were delayed after the technician was bitten by a dog on his way into the building. A few rabies shots later, the tech and the elevator were both doing fine. The dog remains at large.
  • A 24-year old student at Brooklyn Law School is planning to run for magistrate judge in his local Pennsylvania community this spring, and will campaign while completing his studies. The judicial position does not require a law degree in any event. He plans to file as both a Democrat and Republican for purposes of the state primary.
  • The Arkansas Judicial Council, working to mend fences after the new chief justice attempted unsuccessfully to fire ten senior court employees, issued a formal resolution recognizing the employees’ service to the judiciary.

Georgia judge dies in courthouse by apparent suicide

A tragic story as the year turns over: Georgia state judge Stephen Yekel was found dead in his courtroom Tuesday morning. The cause of death appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Yekel was elected to the bench in May 2022 but was not reelected this past November. His term was set to end on December 31. A few weeks ago, Yekel attempted to resign his position effective December 30, apparently to nullify the election results by creating a new vacancy that could be filled by Governor Brian Kemp. But Kemp refused to accept the resignation and deferred to the will of the voters.

Our thoughts are with Judge Yekel’s family and friends.

Village justices elected in New York with fewer than 20 write-in votes; one winner “undecided” about whether to take job

Village courts are one of the oddest parts of New York’s notably byzantine court system. Justices are tasked with deciding cases involving traffic fines, evictions, criminal misdemeanors, and some civil matters. Unlike other judges in the state, village court justices do not need to have any formal legal training. But like all other trial judges in New York, they must be elected.

Apparently most citizens of Onandaga County did not care to vote for their village justices, and exactly zero citizens in the villages of Spafford and East Syracuse could be bothered to formally seek the position. As a result, the winner of each town’s election prevailed with fewer than 20 write in votes.

Anthony Albanese, who won the East Syracuse election with 16 write-in votes (and aided by 1,181 blank ballots), is reportedly “undecided” whether to take the position, which pays $9,000 annually.

(h/t Election Law Blog)

Bolivia’s move to judicial elections is not going well

Today Bolivians go to the polls to elect their judges, making the country the first (and so far only) nation in the world that chooses its highest judges at the ballot box. Reports suggest that the lead-up to the election is not going well, with widespread voter apathy and resignation, and lots of behind-the-scenes politicization of the process:

In Bolivia, even senior judicial officials struggle to sound positive when asked to defend the election.

“It should be a calm, easy and simple process, but it has become very litigious, very controversial,” Francisco Vargas, the vice president of Bolivia’s electoral tribunal, told The Associated Press from the court in central La Paz.

This year in Bolivia, experts find it even harder than usual to praise the system. With the posts up for grabs every six years, Sunday’s vote was supposed to take place in late 2023.

But as the deadline approached last year, the Constitutional Court — packed with allies of President Luis Arce — suddenly intervened to push the vote back a year, escalating his power struggle with his former mentor and current rival, Morales, over who will lead their long-dominant leftist party into Bolivia’s 2025 presidential election.

Both understand that whoever wins over the Constitutional Court ensures their own political survival.

Arizona legislature advances measure to eliminate judicial term limits

Arizona lawmakers have advanced a ballot measure that would eliminate term limits for many state judges, instead making judicial service dependent on “good behavior.” The bill would have retroactive effect, meaning that if voters pass it in November, all judges who currently face periodic retention elections would effectively be granted life terms. This would apply even to judges who lose a retention bid in the same November election.

The immediate practical impact of the measure is to severly curb the number of judicial retention elections, a mainstay in Arizona for decades. Currently, all state appellate judges, as well as Superior Court judges in Coconimo, Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal Counties, face retention at the end of their set terms of office. Under the proposed measure, however, such judges would only face a retention vote upon (1) conviction of a felony or another crime involving fraud or dishonesty, (2) initiation of personal backruptcy proceedings, or (3) a determination by the Judicial Performance Review (JPR) Commission that the judge does not meet performance standards. Continue reading “Arizona legislature advances measure to eliminate judicial term limits”

South Dakota mulls ending contested judicial elections

The legislative proposal is still in its early stages, and would need voter approval in 2024. It would end contested elections of judges and create a mechanism for formally allowing all judges to be appointed by the Governor. All judges would then face periodic retention elections, during which they would run unopposed and voters would choose to retain them for another term.

The proposal is far less radical as it seems. As this article points out, almost all state judges are already appointed to fill vacancies that occur between election cycles. Indeed, almost no judges actually ascend to the bench in the first instance from a direct election. Removing the requirement of contested elections is therefore as much a housekeeping measure as anything else.

It’s also an excellent idea. Contested judicial elections are in fact almost never contested, and when they are they are subject to deep politicization. Retention elections would continue to provide accountability to the voters, especially if it is paired with a robust judicial performance evaluation program.

Let’s see how this plays out. It is a hard thing for voters to give up their franchise, even in elections where there is rarely a decision to be made. But it is a development that bears watching.

Ohio Democrats to Democratic judge: Don’t run for chief justice; you could win!

The perverse nature of choosing judges through partisan elections is currently on display in Ohio, where some Democrats see no benefit to a highly qualified member of their own party running for chief justice.

The state’s current chief justice, Maureen O’Connor, is retiring in 2022, and two associate justices of the state supreme court, Patrick DeWine and Jennifer Brunner, are considering running for the open seat. In Ohio, where judges must run in partisan primaries, their party affiliation is well-known. DeWine is a Republican and Brunner is a Democrat. The retiring O’Connor is also a Republican.

Justice Brunner may well make an excellent chief, and she is certainly saying all the right things about serving the people of Ohio. But to some Democratic bean-counters, a Brunner victory only has potential downside.

Here’s why: If Brunner becomes chief justice, her current seat in the state supreme court could be filled by Governor Mike DeWine.* DeWine, a Republican, would presumably appoint a Republican judge to that seat, meaning no net gain on the court for the Democrats. Moreover, if Brunner becomes chief justice, she will only be able to serve one full six-year term before hitting the mandatory retirement age, meaning that she would have to step down from the court after the 2028 election. If she remained in her current position, however, she could in theory stay on the court until 2032.

If you subscribe to the view that judges are simply legislators in robes, maintaining a certain number of (D)s and (R)s on the court is more important than each judge’s skill, integrity, experience, and temperament. But if you view judges as actual people with professional pride and commitments to excellence, treating them as fungible back-benchers is both inaccurate and insulting.

I have no view about who would make the best chief justice for Ohio. But I do know that it has little to do with a forced party affiliation, and much more to do with people skills, administrative capacity, ambition, effort, intelligence, and drive. I hope that Ohioans agree.

* Yes, Mike DeWine is related to Justice Brunner’s opponent, Patrick DeWine. They are father and son, respectively.

The disconnect between what Americans want in their judges and how they choose them

Professor Herbert Kritzer has a very interesting new article in Judicature, exploring the qualities Americans say they want in their state judges. It turns out that professional qualities like reputation for integrity and respect from leaders of the legal community are heavily desired, while political qualities like running for holding office or respect from party leaders is much less desired.

So then why do so many states still choose their judges through partisan, or at least politically influenced, elections? I offer a few thoughts at the IAALS Blog.

States reprimand judges and judicial candidates for electoral improprieties

Judges in Florida and Ohio separately received public reprimands from their state supreme courts this week for interfering with judicial elections during the 2020 campaign.

In Florida, Judge Richard Howard received a reprimand for trying to discourage a lawyer from challenging a sitting judge during a local election, and instead urging the lawyer to challenge a different judge. While Judge Howard did not make the statements public, the state supreme court found that his actions “failed to promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary,” among other things.

In Ohio, Karen Falter, a candidate for a trial court seat in Hamilton County, was reprimanded for mailing campaign literature falsely accusing her opponent (then the incumbent) of moving into the county only three years earlier in order to take a judicial appointment. The state supreme court affirmed the reprimand, concluding that the truth about the opponent’s residency was easily verifiable and that making the false statement amounted to at least a reckless disregard of the truth.

Public reprimands are a significant form of attorney and judicial discipline. While the attorney may continue to practice and the judge may remain on the bench, the reprimand and the reasons therefor become part of the public record.

Direct elections are a troublesome way to choose judges, but as long as states require them, candidates need to comport their electoral behavior to preserve public confidence in the judiciary.

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”