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Ginsburg backs end to judicial elections

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg endorsed a ban on the election of judges at the state and local level on Thursday while speaking at a conference for the National Association of Women Judges. Ginsburg said she supported her former colleague, retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in her campaign to urge state legislatures to move towards merit-based judicial appointments instead of direct judicial elections. Both women take issue with the fundraising aspect of judicial elections and the campaign promises that are made in order to secure funds. According to the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) there are 33 states that select judges through direct elections. Ginsburg noted in her speech that she dissented from a 2002 decision which stated that no limits could be put on the issues and topics discussed by judicial candidates. She claims that the First Amendment allows "sensible limits" to be put on candidates to ensure the impartiality the distinguishes a judicial office from a political office. The O'Connor Judicial Selection Initiative (OJSI) came in response to a June 2009 decision by the US Supreme Court that West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Justice Brent Benjamin violated the due process rights of a civil plaintiff when he did not recuse himself from a case where the defendant was one of his major campaign contributors. The OJSI is urging legislatures to adopt a system similar to one O'Connor helped to introduce in Arizona, where a state commission made up mostly of non-lawyers pick judges, governors appoint judges selected by the commissions, and voters decide in future elections whether the judges stay in office. Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery has called the appointment system elitist and says that elections make him accountable to the citizens of Pennsylvania, rather than the governor or a commission.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).