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Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Courts - Missouri Bar issues voters' guide to judges facing retention
An AP story today in the Jefferson City Missouri News-Tribune reports:
Aiming to help voters decide whether to retain certain judges this November, The Missouri Bar issued a report Tuesday summarizing evaluations of the jurists by lawyers and, in some instances, by jurors as well.Access it here.Judges on the state Supreme Court, the three-district Court of Appeals and five circuit courts in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas are appointed by the governor and stand for retention periodically.
Unlike elected judges, who are free to tout their qualifications directly to voters, those who face retention are barred from campaigning, making them question marks to most voters.
The Missouri Bar has worked for years to fill in the blanks about individual judges by surveying lawyers who have appeared in their courtrooms. Most judges receive overwhelming recommendations to keep their black robes.
And in a pilot project this year, the Bar also asked people who had served on juries in St. Louis County to evaluate seven of the judges up for retention there. Generally, the jurors' evaluations were aligned with or more favorable than the lawyers' findings about the judges.
“The jurors' evaluations add an important point of view that should be considered by everyone who casts a judicial ballot,” Missouri Bar president Douglas Copeland said in a statement. “Voters can put the jurors' ratings side by side with the lawyers' evaluations and have a complete picture of each judge's courtroom behavior and professional skills.”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 30, 2006 03:01 PM
Posted to Courts in general