Fair Courts E-lert: W.Va. Court Race Emerges as Primary's Priciest
1. According to the Associated Press, “West Virginia's Supreme Court race is the most expensive of the May 8 primary, with the six Democrats seeking nomination for the two seats up this year together spending $1.4 million.” And a Wall Street Journal blog about the “pricey primary” in West Virginia speculated that the “gavel must be gold.” Previous analyses of spending on high court elections nationally have highlighted the link between the rise in spending on television advertising in state supreme court races and the overall skyrocketing levels of judicial election spending. For information about the sponsorship, content and costs of televised state supreme court campaign ads in West Virginia and other states, see Buying Time 2012, the Brennan Center’s online resource for state supreme court elections.
Lawrence Messina, W.Va. Court Race Emerges as Primary's Priciest, Associated Press, May 1, 2012; Gary Fields, Pricey Primary: W.Va. Supreme Court, Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2012.
Court Resources
2. Last week, Chief Justice John Minton Jr. of the Kentucky Supreme Court announced that as a result of more than $25 million in cuts to the judiciary’s fiscal year 2013 budget, “3,700 workers, including more than 400 judges and circuit court clerks, would be furloughed without pay for three days between August and October, forcing courthouses statewide to close.” In the Louisville Courier-Journal , Chief Justice Minton remarked that “[i]n the modern history of the commonwealth, I do not know of a time that service to the public has been interrupted because there’s not enough money to keep the courts open... We cut fat before, and we’re now cutting bone.” This year’s Law Day theme, "No Courts, No Justice, No Freedom," sought to raise awareness about the dangers of continued cuts state court budgets across the country, and in a Presidential proclamation, President Barack Obama noted that “courts are the guarantors of civil justice, social order, and public safety, and we must do everything we can to enable their critical work.”
Jason Riley and Tom Loftus, Budget Cuts to Close Kentucky Courts for Three Days, The Courier-Journal, May 3, 2012; James B. Kelleher, Kentucky's Cash-Strapped Courts to Shut Temporarily, Reuters, May 2, 2012.
3. Responding to an annual list of “judicial hellholes” published by the American Tort Reform Association, a Philly.com commentary last week highlighted an opposing, positive view of Philadelphia’s civil courts. According to the commentary, a new report issued by the Taking Back Our Courts project found that the Philadelphia civil courts’ “handling of civil jury cases is now better than that of any large urban trial court in the United States” and “the American Tort Reform Association’s criticism really stems from the perception that businesses suffer due to high rates of litigation in certain areas.”
David Ward, Not Guilty of ‘Hellhole’ Charge, Philly.com, May 3, 2012.
Diversity on the Bench
4. The National Law Journal reports that “[t]he number of minority law clerks serving federal judges has declined from five years ago, despite judges declaring there is room for improvement and a pilot program to enhance diversity of law clerks serving in federal chambers.” According to the Journal, statistics released by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts show that “[t]he decrease for African-American clerks between fiscal years 2006 and 2010 was most pronounced, with a decline from 3.5 percent of appellate level clerks in 2006 to 2.4 percent in 2010…[while] the number of Hispanic appellate level clerks dropped from 3.1 to 2 percent during the same period.”
Todd Ruger, Statistics Show no Progress in Federal Court Law Clerk Diversity, National Law Journal, May 2, 2012.
Federal Judicial Selection
5. A report released last week by the Alliance for Justice noted, “current vacancies on the federal bench have risen by 43%. This trend stands in stark contrast to President Clinton and President Bush’s first three years, when vacancies declined by 57% and 60%, respectively.” Today, the Senate is scheduled to vote on three pending nominees as a part of an agreement reached by Democrats and Republicans last month to give 17 nominees floor votes, according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the White House is meeting with advocates from around the country to strategize how to best move stalled nominations. A statement issued by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and 29 other national organizations underscored the importance of a fully-staffed federal bench, stating that “[o]bstruction by a minority in the Senate has left the nation with 96 current and future vacancies on the federal courts, leading to a substantial backlog of cases that undermines our system of justice and makes it impossible for most Americans to have their case heard in a timely manner.”
Susan Crabtree, Vacant Court Benches Draw Strategy Session, The Washington Times, May 6, 2012; James Fallows, 'You Should Know': Latest Nullification News, of the Judiciary, The Atlantic, May 6 2012.
Miscellaneous
6. Today, the three Iowa Supreme Court Justices who were ousted in the 2010 judicial retention vote will be awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in recognition of their “political courage.” According to a recent New York Times op-ed profiling former Chief Justice Marsha Ternus—who was removed from office along with Justices David Baker and Michael Streit after participating in a unanimous high court decision striking down the state’s ban on gay marriage—the former Chief Justice expressed concern about the politicization of the judiciary, “with elected officials and partisan groups firing warning shots at judges and screening them for preordained allegiances.”
Frank Bruni, Heartland Justice, New York Times, May 5, 2012.
