Depoliticizing the bench: Challenges to nonpartisan judicial selection methods in Arizona, plus a suit to separate the Judiciary from the Legislature in South Carolina.

Is it a constitutional problem if a judge presides over the case of a corporate CEO who spent three million dollars to elect the judge in question? The Supreme Court faced just this question last term...Now, less than a year later, the Supreme Court is poised to open the floodgates to a volume of corporate spending in judicial elections that could make three million dollars look like a drop in the bucket.

American legal talent comes in all shapes and sizes--which is why we should worry about our homogeneous federal bench. During the nomination process of Sonia Sotomayor, the press focused largely on the gender and racial diversity that she brought to the bench....

With Justice Elizabeth Weaver leading the charge, the Michigan Supreme Court is poised to codify new standards for how and when judges must recuse themselves. As it stands now in Michigan, when a party to a case files a motion requesting that a judge disqualify himself due to aconflict of interest, that very judge can deny the motion (refusing to recuse himself) without having to explain why.