Md. Chief Judge Barbera calls for an end to judicial elections

ANNAPOLIS – Maryland’s top jurist called Thursday for the abolition of contested elections to circuit court judgeships in the state, saying a truly independent judiciary must be free of the need to make campaign promises and to raise money from the attorneys who appear before the judges in court.

“Justice is meant to be fair and impartial,” Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera said at a Maryland State Bar Association luncheon. “We (judges) are not politicians. We cannot make promises about how we would rule in future cases.”

Barbera’s call for amending the Maryland Constitution to eliminate judicial elections follows her similar pleas in past years. Those efforts failed amid critics’ concern that barring people from running for judgeships would leave the judicial selection process solely with governors who might not seek a bench with ethnic and gender diversity.

The chief judge said that criticism might have been valid 40 years ago, when Maryland’s “courts were overly white and male.” However, she said, the courts today “look like the communities they serve,” though she added that “we’re not completely there yet.”

Barbera is the first woman to serve as chief judge on Maryland’s top court.

Applicants for circuit court judgeships are subjected to a strenuous vetting process by trial court nominating commissions that then submit the surviving names to the governor, who decides whom to appoint, Barbera said. A person can also be elected to a judgeship by challenging a sitting judge in an election. Such contested elections are rooted in promises and fundraising, activities inconsistent with the duties of a judge, Barbera said.

“Contested elections are by definition political,” Barbera told the lawyers’ group. “The temptation to make promises … is often too great.”

“The only promise a judge can make to the public (is) to be fair and impartial,” she said.

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s appearance in Annapolis to speak against contested judicial elections, calling them a stain on judges’ need to be free of even the appearance of bias.

Barbera recalled O’Connor’s appearance, saying the Maryland Judiciary will press even harder this year for a constitutional amendment.

Sen. William C. “Will” Smith Jr., who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, told the MSBA that he welcomes the “renewed energy” in seeking the abolition of judicial elections.

Smith recalled seeing attorneys campaigning for a judge facing an election challenger and realizing with disdain that some would be appearing before that jurist the following week in a process that depends on judges’ being impartial.

“I couldn’t think of a greater perversion of the process,” Smith said.

The Montgomery County Democrat said he hopes the General Assembly will take “swift action” this year in approving a proposed constitutional amendment to place before Maryland voters in November.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Luke Clippinger, D-Baltimore City, told the MSBA he will strive for a consensus among the various expected proposals to limit or eliminate judicial elections.