Litigation

Post-Dispatch Lauds Judicial Appointment System

By Charlie Hall

A St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial offers a ringing endorsement of how nonpartisan judicial nominating commissions have worked in that city.

 The editorial, titled ”Advice for new judicial selection commissioners,” was prompted by the recent inclusion on Greene County’s judicial nominating commission of an avowed opponent of merit selection systems. Greene County voted in November to switch from competitive elections for trial judges to a system in which Missouri’s governor names local judges from nominees submitted by a nonpartisan commission.

The Post-Dispatch wrote:

The new Greene County commission … might want to talk to experienced lay commission members here.

Take Stephen F. Doss, for example. He?s a Republican businessman who is serving for the second time on the selection commission for the St. Louis Circuit Court. He was appointed to a four-year term in the 1980s by then-Gov. John Ashcroft. Mr. Blunt selected Mr. Doss last year.

Mr. Doss says he is a true believer in direct democracy, but he has come to believe that the Missouri Plan?s merit selection process works better in choosing judges.

He considers the process to be genuinely non-partisan. He notes that many judges appointed to the circuit court bench by the governor of one party later have been promoted to appellate judgeships by a governor of another party.

The editorial also includes a link the American Judicature Society’s “Handbook for Judicial Nominating Commissioners.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).