Litigation

Challenge Ahead Over Tennessee Plan?

By Peter Hardin

Are critics of Tennessee’s merit selection plan for selecting appeals court judges gearing up to seek a switch to partisan judicial elections?

Maybe, suggests a Tennessean article that is entitled, “New fight brews over judge selection process in Tennessee.” The article picks up a thread mentioned in Gavel Grab last week and takes it further, while naming some players who may be involved, but the outlook still is uncertain.

The current merit selection plan is not scheduled to expire before 2012, but some of its critics take heart in new Republican majorities in the state legislature following November’s elections and may move to bring the issue up sooner than 2012.

Accountability to voters is one concern of the critics. “If elections are so crooked that you cannot elect a judge ? then what does that say about our form of government?” said state Rep. Frank Niceley, R-Knoxville. He and other foes of the existing selection plan “are convinced they now have the votes to overturn it,” the newspaper reported.

Former Gov. Winfield Dunn, who signed the Tennessee Plan into law in the early 1970s, no longer supports it and said it was unconstitutional.

Gov.-elect Bill Haslam does not support changes to the plan, however, according to a spokesman. And a supporter of the existing system warned of the political influence it could inject into Tennessee’s courts.

“It is always better to choose judges based on merit than politics,” said Tom Lee, a Nashville attorney. “We know that politics are a part of legislation, that politics play an important role in selecting our governor, but that politics do not have a place in our courtrooms.”

You can learn more about how merit selection systems work from Justice at Stake’s issues page on the topic.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 03, 2011 (boomark / email).