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Merit Selection And Performance Evaluation Of Alaska’S Judges, Teresa W. Carns
Merit Selection And Performance Evaluation Of Alaska’S Judges, Teresa W. Carns
Alaska Law Review
No abstract provided.
Essentials And Expendables Of The Missouri Plan, The, Sandra Day O'Connor
Essentials And Expendables Of The Missouri Plan, The, Sandra Day O'Connor
Missouri Law Review
This speech was presented by Sandra Day O'Connor at the University of Missouri School of Law on February 27, 2009. It is the 2009 Earl F. Nelson Lecture and was part of the symposium titled "Mulling over the Missouri Plan: A Review of State Judicial Selection and Retention Systems." The author has modified the speech and added citations for publication purposes
Parties, Interest Groups, And Systemic Change, Anthony Champagne
Parties, Interest Groups, And Systemic Change, Anthony Champagne
Missouri Law Review
If we are going to get from point A to B - if we are going to change a state system of judicial selection - what must be done? How does one get from a judicial election system to a merit-selection system? Generally it is going to take a state constitutional amendment to make the change. That is usually going to mean that a constitutional amendment must be approved by the legislature in order to be submitted to the people for a vote. To do this, key interest groups must be considered. The story of changing to merit selection is …
Reconciling The Judicial Ideal And The Democratic Impulse In Judicial Retention Elections, Rachel Paine Caufield
Reconciling The Judicial Ideal And The Democratic Impulse In Judicial Retention Elections, Rachel Paine Caufield
Missouri Law Review
It is hardly novel to suggest that judicial elections, including retention elections, illustrate profound and irreconcilable tensions in the American governmental scheme. The guiding political philosophy of liberal democracy dictates that judges be insulated from popular will and therefore remain free to adhere to the law, regardless of how unpopular such adherence may be. Complete independence would permit judges to be reckless in their use of the law as a tool of power. Complete accountability would render the rule of law, and the protections it affords to political minorities and others who lack political power, nonexistent. This elusive ideal of …
Bench, The Bar, And Everyone Else: Some Questions About State Judicial Selection, The, Michael E. Debow
Bench, The Bar, And Everyone Else: Some Questions About State Judicial Selection, The, Michael E. Debow
Missouri Law Review
I am honored to be a part of this conference. I very much appreciate the hospitality of the law school, particularly the efforts of the Missouri Law Review staff. It has been a wonderful event. A wide range of views has been presented here, and I think that is a great credit to the people who organized the program. Just briefly, I am from Alabama, and I am not here to tell you what you should do in Missouri. That probably comes as a big relief. I became interested in this subject about fifteen years ago because of what was …
Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan: The Least Political Method Of Selecting High Quality Judges, The, Laura Denvir Stith, Jeremy Root
Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan: The Least Political Method Of Selecting High Quality Judges, The, Laura Denvir Stith, Jeremy Root
Missouri Law Review
According to Justice Steven Breyer, "the reputation and the reality of the fairness and effectiveness of the American judicial system are in the hands of the states."1 In the laboratory of American democracy, each sovereign state has the freedom to design the method by which members of its judiciary are chosen. The unique history, culture and experiences of each state have led to the adoption of a variety of systems to select judges. These methods generally fall into one of three categories: contested election, political appointment, or merit selection.
Foreword, R. Lawrence Dessem
Foreword, R. Lawrence Dessem
Missouri Law Review
It is my great pleasure to introduce the Missouri Law Review's 2009 symposium: "Mulling Over the Missouri Plan: A Review of State Judicial Selection and Retention Systems." This has been a labor of love by the entire staff of the Missouri Law Review, and both the February 27 symposium and the written symposium that follows are a work product that should serve as a touchstone for scholars, policy-makers, and all members of the public who are interested in state judicial selection and retention systems and the current efforts to amend and extend those systems.
We Have Met The Special Interests, And We Are They, Michael R. Dimino Sr.
We Have Met The Special Interests, And We Are They, Michael R. Dimino Sr.
Missouri Law Review
I have two major points. First, because there is no such thing as a general interest, it makes no sense to speak of "special" interests. Second, judicial decisions make policy. In so doing, they benefit certain interests at the expense of others, whether judges are selected by elections, appointments, or some hybrid system. So, it should not be surprising that politics pervades the choice of judges under every system used or considered today. No selection system may be capable of eliminating the power of interest groups, but the selection system may determine which of those interests are benefited. As a …
Comments On The White, Caufield, And Tarr Articles, Duane Benton
Comments On The White, Caufield, And Tarr Articles, Duane Benton
Missouri Law Review
These three articles are valuable additions to the literature on retention elections. I am honored to comment, understanding I was chosen because I have survived merit selection (both as an applicant and as chair of the commission), a retention election, federal appointment, various roles in partisan elections, and an undergraduate political-science, voter-behavior education
Plea For Reality, A, Roy A. Schotland
Plea For Reality, A, Roy A. Schotland
Missouri Law Review
Thank you for the privilege and the pleasure of joining you, in the best possible state for any discussion of judicial selection and blessedly at a distinguished law school. For me, after twenty-five years of involvement in the judicial election scene and four weeks after retiring from teaching - but not, I hope, from continued involvement - this is a unique opportunity to share views, air questions, consider the ever-evolving changes and challenges, and speak bluntly on a few points. I treasure the friendships I have built with others similarly involved, and I hope that my comments, some of which …
Shedding (Empirical) Light On Judicial Selection, Lee Epstein
Shedding (Empirical) Light On Judicial Selection, Lee Epstein
Missouri Law Review
Relative to commentators at Political Science and Economics meetings, the discussants at law conferences are generally quite kind, genteel even. They almost always say, "This is a really wonderful set of papers" - even if the papers are not so wonderful - or that they really learned a lot from the papers - even if they didn't. Happily, with regard to the three papers the organizers asked me to discuss,' I need not stretch the truth for purposes of collegiality. I really do think they are a wonderful set of papers and really did learn a lot
Federal And State Judicial Selection In An Interest Group Perspective, Michael E. Solimine, Rafael Gely
Federal And State Judicial Selection In An Interest Group Perspective, Michael E. Solimine, Rafael Gely
Missouri Law Review
This Article proceeds as follows. In Part II, we summarize the model advanced by Landes and Posner. In Part III, we explore some of the criticisms that have been levied against their model, while in Part IV we raise some criticisms of our own and explore how later scholarship has addressed them. Part V concludes the article.
Do Retention Elections Work, G. Alan Tarr
Do Retention Elections Work, G. Alan Tarr
Missouri Law Review
During the twentieth century, judicial reformers attempting to depoliticize the selection of state court judges and increase respect for the courts advocated moving from competitive elections for judges to "merit selection" or - as it was initially known - the "Missouri Plan." During the 1960s and 1970s, these reformers enjoyed considerable success. Whereas in 1960 only three states - Alaska, Kansas, and Missouri - employed merit selection to choose state supreme court justices, by 1980 eighteen did so. Of course, adoption of merit selection did not altogether eliminate judicial elections, because judges appointed under merit selection are in most states …
Politics Of Merit Selection, The, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Politics Of Merit Selection, The, Brian T. Fitzpatrick
Missouri Law Review
In this Article, I undertake an evaluation of a method of judicial selection in use in many states that is known as "merit selection." The merit system is distinctive from the other systems of judicial selection in use today in the powerful role it accords lawyers and, in particular, state bar associations. Proponents of the merit system contend that it is superior to the other forms of judicial selection - elections or appointment by elected officials - because state bar associations are more likely to select judges on the basis of "merit" and less likely to select judges on the …
Using Judicial Performance Evaluations To Supplement Inappropriate Voter Cues And Enhance Judicial Legitimacy, Penny J. White
Using Judicial Performance Evaluations To Supplement Inappropriate Voter Cues And Enhance Judicial Legitimacy, Penny J. White
Missouri Law Review
Justice John Paul Stevens once noted that "[i]t is the confidence in the men and women who administer justice that is the true backbone of the rule of law." This confidence gives legitimacy to courts at every level. But how is such confidence to be achieved and maintained? How do we instill trust and confidence in the judiciary in those members of the public with little knowledge of the court system or those who attain their knowledge from questionable sources? What kinds of information can be used to counterbalance the denigrating effect of judicial campaigns? This Article suggests that judicial …
Missouri Plan In National Perspective, The, Stephen J. Ware
Missouri Plan In National Perspective, The, Stephen J. Ware
Missouri Law Review
The Missouri Law Review's title for this symposium rightly recognizes the distinction between judicial selection and judicial retention. We should distinguish the process that initially selects a judge from the process that determines whether to retain that judge on the court. Judicial selection and judicial retention raise different issues. In this paper, I primarily focus on selection. I summarize the fifty states' methods of supreme court selection and place them on a continuum from the most populist to the most elitist. Doing so reveals that the Missouri Plan is the most elitist (and least democratic) of the three common methods …
Exporting The Missouri Plan: Judicial Appointment Commissions, Mary L. Volkcansek
Exporting The Missouri Plan: Judicial Appointment Commissions, Mary L. Volkcansek
Missouri Law Review
Debates over the best methods for selecting judges in the United States usually turn on finding an appropriate balance between independence and accountability for judges, but elsewhere the tension between those two competing ends has been resolved in favor of judicial independence. According to Martin Shapiro, judges cannot, though, be truly independent, because they are dependent on those to whom they owe their office. Or, as Jean Blondel sees it, the question becomes one of "from whom should judges be independent?" Judges are, in other words, dependent in some sense on those to whom they are accountable. New democracies and …
Depoliticizing Administrative Law, Cass R. Sunstein, Thomas J. Miles
Depoliticizing Administrative Law, Cass R. Sunstein, Thomas J. Miles
Duke Law Journal
A large body of empirical evidence demonstrates that judicial review of agency action is highly politicized in the sense that Republican appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate liberal agency decisions than conservative ones, while Democratic appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate conservative agency decisions than liberal ones. These results hold for both (a) judicial review of agency interpretations of law and (b) judicial review of agency decisions for "arbitrariness" on questions of policy and fact. On the federal courts of appeals, the most highly politicized voting patterns are found on unified panels, that is, on panels consisting solely …
Are Appointed Judges Strategic Too?, Joanna M. Shepherd
Are Appointed Judges Strategic Too?, Joanna M. Shepherd
Duke Law Journal
The conventional wisdom among many legal scholars is that judicial independence can best be achieved with an appointive judiciary; judicial elections turn judges into politicians, threatening judicial autonomy. Yet the original supporters of judicial elections successfully eliminated the appointive systems of many states by arguing that judges who owed their jobs to politicians could never be truly independent. Because the judiciary could function as a check and balance on the other governmental branches only if it truly were independent of them, the reformers reasoned that only popular elections could ensure a truly independent judiciary. Using a data set of virtually …
A Response To Professor Ramseyer, Predicting Court Outcomes Through Political Preferences, Michael Boudin
A Response To Professor Ramseyer, Predicting Court Outcomes Through Political Preferences, Michael Boudin
Duke Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Predicting Court Outcomes Through Political Preferences: The Japanese Supreme Court And The Chaos Of 1993, J. Mark Ramseyer
Predicting Court Outcomes Through Political Preferences: The Japanese Supreme Court And The Chaos Of 1993, J. Mark Ramseyer
Duke Law Journal
Empiricists routinely explain politically sensitive decisions of the U.S. federal courts through the party of the executive or legislature appointing the judge. That they can do so reflects the fundamental independence of the courts. After all, appointment politics will predict judicial outcomes only when judges are independent of sitting politicians. Because Japanese Supreme Court justices enjoy an independence similar to that of U.S. federal judges, I use judicial outcomes to ask whether Japanese premiers from different parties have appointed justices with different political preferences. Although the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) governed Japan for most of the postwar period, it temporarily …
Do Judges Think? Comments On Several Papers Presented At The Duke Law Journal’S Conference On Measuring Judges And Justice, Robert Henry
Do Judges Think? Comments On Several Papers Presented At The Duke Law Journal’S Conference On Measuring Judges And Justice, Robert Henry
Duke Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Money, Politics, And Impartial Justice, Joanna M. Shepherd
Money, Politics, And Impartial Justice, Joanna M. Shepherd
Duke Law Journal
A centuries-old controversy asks whether judicial elections are inconsistent with impartial justice. The debate is especially important because more than 90 percent of the United States' judicial business is handled by state courts, and approximately nine in ten of all state court judges face the voters in some type of election. Using a stunning new data set of virtually all state supreme court decisions from 1995 to 1998, this paper provides empirical evidence that elected state supreme court judges routinely adjust their rulings to attract votes and campaign money. I find that judges who must be reelected by Republican voters, …
Aligning Judicial Elections With Our Constitutional Values: The Separation Of Powers, Judicial Free Speech, And Due Process, Jason D. Grimes
Aligning Judicial Elections With Our Constitutional Values: The Separation Of Powers, Judicial Free Speech, And Due Process, Jason D. Grimes
Cleveland State Law Review
This Note consists of five Parts. Part II traces the historical development of state judicial elections from the perspective of the Framers' doctrine of separation of powers. It shows that judicial elections were borne more of historical contingency than constitutional design. Part II then assesses the recent history of elections to the Ohio Supreme Court. It determines that Ohio's judicial elections share two problems with many other states: millions of dollars given to judicial candidates by special interests likely to appear before the court, and candidates' broad freedom of speech to earn the political and financial support of these special …