Why do we trust judges?

• Author: Hawkins, Scott G.
• Position: PRESIDENT'S PAGE

"The price of greatness is responsibility."--Winston Churchill

Bedrock to our democracy is the expectation that in an American court, one will receive a fair trial. While there are limited examples of possible imbalance, the norm by far is fairness to all. Hence the widely held belief that, regardless of money, political affiliation, race, or social status, one will have a fair and impartial judge in America.

This expectation is key to public confidence in our judiciary. If there was fear that judges made decisions based on personal bias or factors like money, politics, vengeance, race, and social status, then there would be little confidence in our system of justice and our judges. Fortunately, as we celebrate Law Day on May 1, we know this is not the case.

Historical Effort to De-politicize the Courts

In 1976, Floridians took steps to insulate our system of justice from politics. Floridians voted to amend the Florida Constitution to implement the current system of selecting Florida's judges on the basis of merit and to eliminate the old system of selecting judges on the basis of politics. Against a backdrop of scandal in the Florida Supreme Court (at a time when candidates for the Supreme Court campaigned and raised political contributions like candidates for representative office), Floridians chose to amend the constitution to institute a new system. As a result, judges were taken out of elective politics in favor of a system where judicial applicants are nominated and submitted to the governor after being screened by nonpartisan commissions. Importantly, the new merit system gave voters an opportunity to assess a sitting judge on the basis of merit through a nonpartisan judicial merit retention vote.

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In short, through this constitutional amendment, Florida's voters sought to de-politicize the courts--to remove judges from politics. Importantly, this system has worked uniformly under seven governors, both Republican and Democratic.

Historical Test of Our System Is Upon Us

In November 2012, Florida's citizens will have an historic opportunity to vote on whether to retain--on the basis of judicial merit--three sitting Supreme Court justices and 15 state court appellate judges. Given national scrutiny and the number of judges at issue, this vote will be of historical import. Significant funds are likely to be invested by various interests opposing various judges and justices. In part, opposition has been galvanized by...