Law Commons^™

Is Justice For Sale In Ohio? An Examination Of Ohio Judicial Elections And Suggestions For Reform Focusing On The 2000 Race For The Ohio Supreme Court, Kara Baker

Akron Law Review

“Is justice for sale in Ohio?” asked a television advertisement in October 2000. Another advertisement informed voters that “today in Ohio, instructors teach and students learn, in spite of Justice Alice Resnick.” These advertisements are examples of the derogatory judicial campaigning that is becoming prevalent in the United States.

Part II of this comment will focus on the 2000 Ohio Supreme Court campaign between Alice Robie Resnick and Terrence O’Donnell as an example of current problems in judicial campaigning. The effect of this campaign and of similar other campaigns on the judicial system and public perceptions of justice will be …

Why The Judicial Elections Debate Matters Less Than You Think: Retention As The Cornerstone Of Independence And Accountability, Layne S. Keele

Akron Law Review

This Article attempts to reframe the age-old judicial election arguments into a discussion about the importance of the retention decision, in order to draw out the areas of true disagreement in the judicial independence/judicial accountability debate. I argue that the core difficulties in balancing the desire for judicial independence with the desire for judicial accountability stem primarily from the judicial retention decision, regardless of whether retention is obtained by some form of reelection or through a form of reappointment. I then propose a two-term system for putting judges on state high courts, in which (1) high court judges sit for …