AN IDEA FOR OUR TIMES

The state Supreme Court suspended Jefferson Parish Judge Ronald Bodenheimer
June 13 after he was arrested and accused of conspiring to plant drugs on a
critic of his marina business.

The next day, the high court suspended Orleans Parish Criminal District
Judge Sharon Hunter pending disciplinary hearings on the tumultuous
conditions in her courtroom that led to lost transcripts and a dozen
overturned convictions -- five of them homicides.

Now, the FBI reportedly has Jefferson Parish Judge Alan Green on tape
accepting $5,000 in cash from a top official of a bail bond company. The
videotaped exchange is described this way by sources close to the
investigation: Bail Bonds Unlimited CFO Norman Bowley asks the judge
whether it is legal to give him a cash campaign contribution, and the judge
says, "Norman, I think so."

The legality of the matter is yet to be determined -- although state ethics
laws limit cash contributions to $100 per year per donor.

And none of the judges in question has been found guilty of any wrongdoing
at this point.

But one thing is abundantly clear: It's time for Louisiana to switch to
merit selection of judges. It's way past time, actually. New Orleans Sen.
John Hainkel, among others, has been pushing for such a move for years with
no luck.

Perhaps with such stunning examples of unseemliness as these as ammunition,
the senator will finally succeed in his mission.

He is preparing to introduce legislation in next spring's regular session,
and Gov. Foster earlier this year pledged his support for the effort.

When Sen. Hainkel pushed merit selection in 1999, he was unable to get
enough of his colleagues to go along. Surely the string of courthouse
scandals this year will draw some reluctant lawmakers to Sen. Hainkel's
side, though.

The senator says his proposal will be similar to the one he introduced four
years ago. Then, he envisioned a nominating committee made up of four
lawyers and five non-lawyers for each judicial district. The nominating
committees would send three names to the governor for each judgeship. After
18 months on the bench, voters would decide whether to keep or remove judges.

Whatever system is created should be crafted with care.

Opponents of merit selection argue that politics is inevitable in choosing
judges and that the politics of the voting booth is preferable to the
politics of an appointed committee. The way to refute those sorts of
arguments is to put a system in place that determines the potential judge's
qualifications as fairly and objectively as possible.

A number of states with merit selection systems use the sort of nominating
committee laid out by Sen. Hainkel.

For such a system to work, the selection committees must be competent,
diverse and representative of their communities. A criticism of merit
selection is that it could be an attempt to reduce the number of women and
minorities on the bench. But a nominating committee that represents a broad
spectrum of community interests should help address those concerns.

Besides, the arguments for merit selection of judges are compelling.

Campaigns require candidates to court the electorate, and to court the
electorate, you sometimes have to make promises to particular groups -- and
you always need money. Lots of it, for some races.

Justice requires something quite different. On the bench, the facts of a
case must take precedence over an individual's desires. What a certain
constituent might or might not want is supposed to have no place in the
equation.

It must be said that just because a judge is elected by popular vote
doesn't mean he or she will show favoritism. And it certainly doesn't mean
he or she will break the public trust.

But the role of a judge is a crucial one in our society, and the further
justice is removed from worldly inducements, the better.

Judicial decisions affect the lives of people in ways that the work of
other public officials does not.

A judge can decide who gets custody of a child and how financially secure
the child's life is. A judge can decide whether or not a person gets to
keep a job or a house. A judge can imprison people for life or sentence
them to death.

The people who fill such crucial and sensitive positions should be not only
competent but impartial and above reproach. Working the campaign trail is
no way to achieve those ideals.