Wondering How to Vote on Judges?

Here is a letter to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch from a member of the official state commission who evaluates and rates judges.

To find out the commission’s ratings of all judges across the state of Missouri, look here .

To find out why some of us vote to retain judges who are appointed, rather than elect them, look here.

Here is what the St. Louis Post Dispatch had to say about the topic.

Neither this commission, nor the lawyers who rate the judges in separate surveys, are primarily concerned with “do I like this judge, do I agree with her/his rulings, is s/he liberal/Democrat/Republican/right winger, or any factor that is personal or partisan. I have never known or heard of a lawyer who did so. I have never heard of any type of “whisper” or other coordinated campaign saying “Hey, let’s get rid of so-and-so”.

The commission, and the lawyers who vote in bar surveys on these judges are concerned with whether or not the judge knows, applies and follows the law, statutes, and prior cases alike, is polite and fair to all litigants on all sides, and maintains proper decorum in his or her courtroom. A 100% rating is a ringing endorsement for a judge by those who are in the best position to make a judgment. If all the judges get them, then all the lawyers and educated onlookers reviewing their collective work agree that they should be retained.

Getting into getting rid of a judge because s/he ruled against you, or in a way you didn’t like or gave too harsh or too lenient a sentence to a criminal is absolutely the wrong thing to do, and not only because you might be going from the proverbial frying pan into the fire with the next judge.