|
Letter to the Editor:
Regarding Cody
Corliss's Jan. 30 Opinion piece, "Electing judges – with cash,"
in which the author proposes replacing voting by citizens with
"merit selection" in determining who should sit on state courts:
Instead of promoting nonpartisanship, a "merit selection" system
just gives trial lawyers and other legal elites the upper hand
in deciding who joins the bench.
In Missouri,
three members of the state's seven-member Appellate Judicial
Commission are practicing trial lawyers and the fourth is a
member of the Missouri Association of Trial Lawyers. In
Tennessee, 14 of 17 members of the Judicial Selection Commission
are lawyers, half of whom are trial lawyers. In Kansas, 5 out of
9 commission members are hand picked by the State Bar.
Groups pushing
"merit selection" such as Justice at Stake, which the author
cites, masquerade as nonpartisan, good-government promoters to
hide their real agenda. Justice at Stake itself is bankrolled by
one of the richest, most powerful special-interest groups in the
land: billionaire George Soros's Open Society Institute, funder
of über liberal causes such as MoveOn.org.
Elbowing voters
aside by putting the trial bar in charge of judicial selection
won't give us an impartial judiciary. But maybe that's the whole
point.
Dan Pero
President,
American Justice Partnership
Lansing, Mich.
Dan Pero, former chief of staff to Michigan Governor John Engler, is
president of the American Justice Partnership, a national
organization headquartered in Lansing seeking legal reform at
the state level.
|
