Missouri Bar joins debate on judges

In Missouri, Kansas and across the country, verbal attacks on judges are increasing in frequency and viciousness. Some call it a war on the American judiciary. Missouri Supreme Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr., who faces a retention vote next year, said he abhors unfair and inaccurate attacks on judges, such as those leveled at his Supreme Court colleague Richard Teitelman when he was up for retention last year. Teitelman’s perceived liberal leanings on some issues led to the attacks. But Limbaugh said a judge’s ideological bent should be fair game for consideration by voters. “Citizens are entitled to retain for any reason or no reason,” Limbaugh said. Deborah Goldberg of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law said the amount of money being spent on judicial elections is growing across the country. Million-dollar campaigns are being seen more frequently, she said. The state should consider using public money that could be used by judges to counter negative ads against them, she suggested.

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Missouri Bar joins debate on judges

By TONY RIZZO

The Kansas City Star

In Missouri, Kansas and across the country, verbal attacks on judges are increasing in frequency and viciousness. Some call it a war on the American judiciary.

Critics speak of judges as out of control, out of touch and arrogant, while Web sites sporting names like stop-the-tyrants.com and stopactivistjudges.org express part of the public sentiment.

The battle was joined Thursday in a free-wheeling discussion in front of hundreds of Missouri lawyers and judges attending the Missouri Bar’s annual meeting in Kansas City.

Local and national panelists took on some of the complex issues surrounding the debate over judicial independence versus judicial restraint going on from the halls of Congress to the state houses in Topeka and Jefferson City.

Missouri’s nonpartisan method of selecting judges — a 65-year-old method that has been the model for dozens of other states, including Kansas — is facing attacks from the governor’s office and state legislators.

One of the panelists, state Sen. Matt Bartle, a lawyer and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was a strong supporter of the “Missouri Plan” but warned: “We ignore criticisms of the Missouri Plan to our great peril.”

Members of both state legislatures have proposed changing the plan to provide for Senate confirmation of Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges. The governor of each state now appoints those judges from a list of candidates screened by nonpartisan selection committees.

The judges periodically stand for public retention votes. One proposal that did not get a hearing with Bartle’s committee called for shorter terms for judges and a two-thirds majority vote for retention. Currently, retention requires a simple majority.

Bartle noted that since the Missouri Plan was adopted in 1940, only two sitting judges have lost retention votes. He said critics point to that to argue that the public’s ability to remove judges from office is too limited.

Missouri Supreme Court Judge Stephen Limbaugh Jr., who faces a retention vote next year, said he abhors unfair and inaccurate attacks on judges, such as those leveled at his Supreme Court colleague Richard Teitelman when he was up for retention last year. Teitelman’s perceived liberal leanings on some issues led to the attacks.

But Limbaugh said a judge’s ideological bent should be fair game for consideration by voters.

“Citizens are entitled to retain for any reason or no reason,” Limbaugh said.

The panelists all agreed that while most of the judicial attacks today are being mounted by conservatives, liberals have done the same thing with conservative judges.

The campaign against Teitelman last year, although unsuccessful, prompted the Missouri Bar to study ways to help judges respond to such attacks.

Panel member R. Lawrence Ward, a Kansas City lawyer and member of the bar committee that studied the issue, said the bar has to face up to such attacks and must do a better job of changing the public perception of a biased judiciary.

The alternative method of selecting judges is election by voters. Former Washington Supreme Court Judge Rosselle Pekelis told the audience Thursday that unqualified and inexperienced candidates have been elected that way. She said Missouri has a far better system.

“Missouri has it right, and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” Pekelis said.

Deborah Goldberg of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law said the amount of money being spent on judicial elections is growing across the country. Million-dollar campaigns are being seen more frequently, she said.

Goldberg said that retention elections could soon be the targets of the same type of campaign spending from special-interest groups.

“Sitting judges are sitting ducks” to those kinds of attacks, she said.

The state should consider using public money that could be used by judges to counter negative ads against them, she suggested.

Limbaugh, who went to law school in Texas and is a member of the Texas Bar, said money denigrates the independence of the judiciary.

“Special interests in Texas have the final say,” he said, when judges have to raise campaign money.

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