What kind of judges do we want

Ignoring the issue of appointments to fill interim judicial vacancies, 17 states have abandoned popular elections for the selection of some or all appellate court judges over the last years. There are no states that elect appellate judges but appoint judges of major trial courts. In several other states that adopted the Missouri Plan for appellate courts, the legislature also considered the system for trial court — but there was never sufficient support to put it before the voters.

These divergent patterns of change suggest at least two questions: Why are voters in some states apparently unwilling to give up elections for trial courts even though they are willing to do so for appellate courts?

And why are legislatures in additional states not even willing to put before voters the question of whether to forego elections for trial courts?

One possible explanation is that voters and legislators see different characteristics as desirable for judges at the appellate and trial level. Surprisingly, the question of what citizens view as important in selecting judges has not been extensively explored. To the extent these are expectations of what a judge should do, they may be more relevant when deciding whether to retain a judge — rather than elect her for the first time — since at least some of these characteristics would be difficult to assess without a history of judicial decisions made by the candidate.

Gibson also provides some data from a national survey conducted by Justice at Stake JaS , a now-defunct organization that advocated the reform of judicial selection. The mean responses ranged from 8. What, then, are the characteristics Americans want in their state judges, and do these characteristics differ depending on the type of court a judge will serve on?

Consequently, one must be careful in interpreting results based on MTurk samples, because there are some known biases, including overrepresentation of males, political liberals, persons under 45, and those with at least a college education. To ameliorate over-representation of liberals and over-representation of males, I did the survey in three stages.

In the first stage, the initial sample of respondents overrepresented persons describing themselves as liberal as compared to what was shown in recent random sample surveys.

A first question is whether the 12 characteristics diverged along the lines of professional and political as I hypothesized. To assess this, I applied a statistical method called factor analyses that can be used to assess whether a set of questions groups along one or more dimensions.

Turning to how the characteristics were rated, Figure 1 above shows the distribution of responses for each characteristic, with the professional characteristics at the top and the political characteristics at the bottom.

Table 1 above shows two statistics for each court. As indicated in the table, for 10 of the 12 characteristics, respondents, on average, differentiated between the two courts when rating the characteristics. Regarding desired characteristics for state supreme court justices, the mean ratings for the professional characteristics all exceeded 3.

In fact, for state supreme court justices, all the professional characteristics were rated higher than any of the political characteristics. However, it is noteworthy that three of the six political characteristics were also rated higher for state supreme courts than for local trial courts. Overall, this suggests that the public may have higher expectations for state supreme court justices than for local trial judges, particularly with regard to professional qualifications.

The process for filling vacancies on state supreme courts varies among states. In most states, the governor appointments a replacement justice, either outright or with assistance from a nominating commission. The most common reasons for a vacancy on a state supreme court include reaching the mandatory retirement age, retiring before the end of a term, death, or appointment to another office.

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How do I update a page? Election results. Circuit councils may appoint a merit selection panel, consisting of judges and other legal professionals, to review and recommend candidates for appointment. Bankruptcy judgeships are created pursuant to legislation enacted by Congress.

Learn more about the history of bankruptcy judges from the following resources:. Similar to senior status Article III judges, bankruptcy and magistrate judges may continue to provide judicial assistance after they have retired.

Generally, recalled judges exercise all the powers and duties that they had as an active judge. Circuit councils determine whether there is a substantial need for recall services from bankruptcy and magistrate judges based on court workload. In addition, recall requests that seek staffing or that cost more than a certain amount in additional salary and travel expenses must be approved by a Judicial Conference committee.

Retired bankruptcy and magistrate judges are appointed for recall service for a specific period of time but no more than three years, which may be renewed. Visiting judges who may sit by designation and assignment in any other federal court having a need for their service. Judges sitting with another court within their circuit are on an intracircuit assignment, which is approved by the circuit chief judge. Judges sitting with a court outside of their home circuit are on an intercircuit assignment.

Supreme Court. Temporary assignments for bankruptcy and magistrate judges are coordinated by chief judges of the courts and circuits. Main content About Federal Judges Federal judges work to ensure equal justice under the law. February 29, July 23, Alicia Bannon, Laila Robbins. June 6, January 2, January 28, September 7, Alicia Bannon ,.