Noisier, Nastier, and Costlier': Shoring Up Institutional Legitimacy in Judicial Elections Using a Legal Ethics Framework

• Author: Rashaud J. Hannah
• Position: J.D., Georgetown University Law Center (expected May 2024)
• Pages: 463-487

NOTE

“Noisier, Nastier, and Costlier”: Shoring Up

Institutional Legitimacy in Judicial Elections Using

a Legal Ethics Framework

RASHAUD J. HANNAH*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

I. INSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

A. JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND INDEPENDENCE . . . . . 467

B. USING A LEGAL ETHICS FRAMEWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

C. APPLYING A LEGITIMACY BALANCING TEST . . . . . . . . . . 469

II. THE VOTERS’ DILEMMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

III. POLICY PRONOUNCEMENTS BY CANDIDATES FOR JUDICIAL

OFFICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

A. FROM MERIT TO PARTISANSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

B. ELECTORAL CALCULATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

C. REELECTION AMBITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

IV. ATTACK ADS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

A. POLITICAL ADVERTISING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

B. CAMPAIGN INTENSITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

C. TECHNOLOGY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

* J.D., Georgetown University Law Center (expected May 2024); Ph.D., Georgetown University

Department of Government (expected May 2025); M.S.Ed., University of Rochester Warner Graduate School

of Education and Human Development (2015); B.A., Yale University (2009). © 2022, Rashaud J. Hannah.

463

V. CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

A. MONEY AND ITS INFLUENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

B. INTEREST GROUPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

INTRODUCTION

Judicial elections are a conspicuous feature of the United States’ third branch of

government.

1

There are three main types of judicial election systems in the

U.S.: partisan, nonpartisan, and reelection.

2

Among these three system types, there

are more than sixteen unique combinations across different jurisdictions and levels of

courts.

3

Thirty-nine of the fifty U.S. states conduct judicial elections to select or retain

at least some of their judicial officers.

4

With seventy-eight percent of states holding

judicial elections,

5

voting in judicial officers is more of the rule than the exception.

Amid the discussion on judicial elections is a concern about their cumulative

effects on the judiciary’s institutional legitimacy.

6

Professor James L. Gibson

notes that “[i]nstitutions perceived to be legitimate are those with a widely

accepted mandate to render judgments for a political community.”

7

A prominent

scholar of law and politics, Gibson describes institutional legitimacy as “perhaps

the most important political capital [that] courts possess,” and finds that certain

judicial campaign activities place this institutional legitimacy under threat.

8

Gibson attributes this problem to specific campaign behaviors such as judicial

candidates’ receipt of campaign contributions and their use of attack ads.

9

But

where threats to institutional legitimacy are present, there are also safeguards to

provide a buffer against institutional decay. This Note focuses the majority of its

1. See Herbert M. Kritzer, Law is the Mere Continuation of Politics by Different Means: American Judicial

Selection in the Twenty-First Century, 56 DEPAUL L. REV. 423, 431 (2007) (“The United States is almost

unique in its use in the judicial selection and retention process. I know of only two exceptions. The first is

Switzerland . . . The second exception . . . Japan[.]”).

2. Bert Brandenburg & Roy A. Schotland, Justice in Peril: The Endangered Balance Between Impartial

Courts and Judicial Election Campaigns, 21 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 1229, 1232 (2008).

3. Id.

4. Rachel P. Caufield, The Changing Tone of Judicial Election Campaigns as a Result of White, in R

UNNING

FOR JUDGE: THE RISING POLITICAL, FINANCIAL, AND LEGAL STAKES OF JUDICIAL ELECTIONS 34 (Matthew

Justin Streb ed., 2007) (noting that seventy-six percent of state trial court judges are elected to their initial term

and eighty-eight percent must be reelected for subsequent terms, while fifty-three percent of state appellate

court judges are elected to their initial term and eighty-nine percent must be reelected for subsequent terms).

5. Id.

6. James L. Gibson, Challenges to the Impartiality of State Supreme Courts: Legitimacy Theory and ‘New-

Style’ Judicial Campaigns, 102 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 59, 59 (2008).

7. Id. at 61.

8. Id. at 59.

9. Id. at 72 (importantly, while Gibson cites judicial candidates’ receipt of campaign contributions and the

use of attack ads as detrimental to courts’ institutional legitimacy, he does not assign this negative impact to ju-

dicial campaigns more generally).

464 THE GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF LEGAL ETHICS [Vol. 35:463