by E. Sebastian Arduengo
Leave it to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board to attack what may be the most rational approach in this country for selecting judges in favor of an approach that leaves the judiciary vulnerable to the same kind of unspoken quid pro quo influence that plagues the political branches of government.
Missouri has long had one of the one of the best non-partisan judicial appointment plans in the country. Under the plan, which h
as since been adopted at least partially by 34 states, a non-partisan commission (usually with close ties to the state bar) reviews candidates for a judicial vacancy, and produces a list of people from which the governor can make an appointment. If the governor doesn’t make an appointment, the selection committee can put a judge on the bench itself. The only popular “check” on the process is a retention election that is typically held once the judge has completed one year of service.
The main criticism of this method of selecting judges is that it gives state bar associations, and plaintiff’s lawyers in particular, too much power in the nominations process, while voters effectively have no input on the people who will take the bench. This argument has been the clarion call of the Journal, and it was brought up again in this recent editorial, with the outrageous claim that Pennsylvania’s recent moves to become the latest state to adopt the Missouri Plan amounted to “the political class … using a political scandal to grab more power.”
Predictably, the Journal glossed over the nature of the scandal prompting Pennsylvania to consider switching from its current system of elections for judges – one of the biggest in the state’s history. It resulted in the resignation of state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin, after she was found guilty of using state employees to run her reelection campaign. One of her sisters, a former state Senator, is already serving prison time after pleading guilty to using state employees to work on her own and Melvin’s campaigns, then forging documents to cover it up.
Gov. Jay Nixon (D-Mo.) has that chance. Dennis Skillicorn is scheduled to be executed on May 20, 2009. Skillicorn (left) does not dispute that when he was younger he committed murders and was a thief. While he was addicted to drugs; he did horrific things. (Update, 5/1/09: Although he was convicted of an earlier murder and plead guilty to the Arizona murders, Skillicorn claims that he was not the triggerman in his first conviction and Nicklasson also confessed to being the triggerman in the Arizona murders.)