All This And More

JUDICIAL REFORM ISN'T ONLY ABOUT MONEY

A.P. Carlton, incoming president of the American Bar Association, remarked
to a North Carolina audience that North Carolina has long been a leader in
judicial reform. That was not unearned flattery. It was fact.

From the court reform movement of the 1960s onward, this state has been a
champion of organization. At times, its passion for order has overshadowed
a more important consideration: justice. Some aspects of structured
sentencing leap to mind. But North Carolina has seldom been content to
stand to one side and wait for others to show the way.

It was reasonable, therefore, that Carlton urged the state to lead by
working for the enactment of a bill, scheduled for the alleged "short"
session next year, that would more tightly restrict the financing of
judicial campaigns.

The money, to be raised from income taxes and attorney license fees, would
be distributed to qualified candidates for the Court of Appeals and the
Supreme Court. The bill was written in response to last year's big-bucks
campaigns for appellate and Supreme Court seats, in which most of the money
came from trial lawyers.

That would be a step forward, and the state should take it. But it should
also be forcing a debate on the one reform that would put the others to
shame: an end to the popular election of judges.

It is never easy to explain why it's a bad thing for the judiciary to be
responsive to public opinion. But it can be done.

First, abolishing judicial elections largely neutralizes all interest
groups seeking to compromise the professional detachment of state officials
whose job is to apply the law impartially and fairly. True, the interest
groups can always wave their money under the nose of the governor, assuming
it's the governor who does the appointing. But the governor lives in a
fishbowl, and a quid pro quo there isn't likely to go unnoticed.

Second, if there are no elections you don't have to worry about having your
case tried by a judge whose opponent you publicly supported. Or one whose
ruling is a foregone conclusion because he boxed himself in with stated or
implied campaign promises having to do with abortion or drugs or some other
hot-button issue. You want a judge who will hear the merits of your
particular case, not an echo of his own campaign oratory. Third, judges,
regardless of their personal ideology, should be seated because they have
the training, the intellect and the strength to do what the job requires --
not because of their charisma.

Fourth, and most fundamental, a judge who darts in whichever direction the
majority appears to be moving at the moment, who never rows against the
current, who quails at the prospect of giving a popular defendant a stiff
sentence or at dismissing the charge against an unpopular one, is a poor
excuse for a judge.

The problem with judicial elections isn't you, personally. It's your
neighbors, and their neighbors, and people all across the district or
state. You may want them on your jury, but do you want their influence at
work on the person whose job it is to know the law and the process and to
see justice done?

That's what judicial elections do, because, in the final analysis, that's
what judicial elections are for.