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Friday, September 05, 2008

Courts - Kansas high court hears case of judicial questionnaires

This story, just posted by the Kansas City Star, was reported by John Milburn of the AP. Some quotes:

TOPEKA | The Kansas Supreme Court was asked Friday to decide whether a judge or candidate for the bench violates the canons of ethics by answering questionnaires.

Attorneys told the justices the issue is a question of two fundamental constitutional rights, those of the judges' free speech and of the public's right to a fair trial.

"This is a clash of constitutional rights, no doubt about it," said George Patton, an attorney for the Kansas Commission on Judicial Qualifications.

The issue surfaced in 2006 when Kansas Judicial Watch sought to ask judges questions about their personal beliefs and positions on certain issues. A federal judge in Topeka issued an injunction blocking the enforcement of the ethics provisions by the qualifications commission on Judicial Qualifications, which appealed the decision.

However, the federal appeals court in Denver requested the Kansas state court clarify the provisions before it considered the commission's appeal. The Kansas ruling could come as early as Oct. 17.

Guiding the decision is a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Minnesota Republican Party v. White that held that ethics canons that prohibit judges from announcing their views on disputed legal or political issues were unconstitutional. * * *

The qualifications commission has proposed changes in the Kansas canons to conform with the 2002 ruling. Those revisions were designed to make it acceptable for judges to answer the questionnaires and still maintain their duty to be impartial, attorneys said.

As written, judges would be able to answer questions about issues so that they would not be construed by a reasonable person to be taken as a promise or pledge to rule a given way.

Those changes must be approved by the Kansas Supreme Court, the final arbiter of judicial rules and conduct. A public comment period ended Aug. 15.

Readers will recall that Washington, D.C.-based attorney George Patton Jr., of Bose McCKinney, represents Indiana’s judicial qualifications commission in the similar case of Torrey Bauer, et al. v. Randall T. Shepard, et al.,. See May 18th ILB entry here and a May 6th entry here.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 5, 2008 06:11 PM
Posted to Courts in general