Editorial: A better way to choose judges

By: The News Herald | Morganton News Herald
Published: October 24, 2010

Morganton, NC --

North Carolina needs a better way to select its judges.
By its very name, “popular election” is wrong. Do we really want the most-popular glad-hander on the bench, or do we want the man or woman with the most knowledge, experience and proven wisdom and impartiality?
How many of us have the knowledge to determine a prospective judge’s qualifications and capabilities? Most people’s direct experience with a judge, if any, is appearing in court for a traffic ticket. Few of us know enough about the law to decide whether a judge can interpret it wisely and well.
We all want judges to be impartial, not beholding to anyone. Americans fought the revolution to throw off the yoke of a king who appointed his friends as judges. Within 60 years after the Revolutionary War, two-thirds of the states no longer let governors choose judges. The political parties clung to power as long as they could, but only 14 states still have partisan elections for all or most judges.
North Carolina took the right step when it made judges’ elections nonpartisan. You can vote a straight-party ticket for other races, but you need to pick judges one by one. Among your choices this year are 13 contenders for a seat on the N.C. Court of Appeals. You’re not likely to know them; the two closest to Burke County live in Greensboro. How can anyone choose?
There is a better system. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia use it today.
Merit-based selection starts with a permanent, nonpartisan nominating commission whose members include both lawyers and non-lawyers. More than one person or group appoints members; for instance, some by the state bar association, some by the legislature, some by the governor. The commission recruits and evaluates candidates and recommends three to five to the governor who makes the final appointment from the commission’s list.
The new judge serves for a one- to two-year probationary period. Then there is a retention election. The ballot asks voters, “Shall Judge ___ be retained in office?” The judge has to win a majority of the votes to keep his seat for a full term. Judges also face a retention vote every four years or so, and citizens can get rid of ones who don’t perform well.
The same system works all the way down to the magistrate’s level, where local nominating commissions screen and recommend candidates.
Merit selection helps assure voters that the men and women presiding over our courts have the qualifications and experience to provide fair, well-informed justice. Voters still have the right to remove judges who, for whatever reasons, do not live up to our expectations. And it’s far easier for voters to make that decision about one judge than to evaluate the merits of 13.
North Carolina’s legislature next year should start designing a merit-based judicial-selection system for voters’ approval in 2012.
— The News Herald

Editorial: A better way to choose judges

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