The Bristol Herald-Courier has a couple articles here and here about the selection of judges in Virginia by the General Assembly.  The paper states that the process goes back to reconstruction and Virginia is one of only two states were the legislature picks judges.

The articles largely center upon State Senator Phillip Puckett’s (D-38) refusal to allow Judge John Farmer of Dickenson County to be re-elected to another term as a Juvenile and Domestic Relations judge.  Puckett said his reasoning for the decision was confidential complaints that he received.

I strongly favor Virginia’s current system of the General Assembly electing judges.  I do not think it would be a good idea to allow judges to be popularly elected as it would inject judges into the public political process.  I don’t think judges should be running public campaigns while in office.  It wouldn’t be good for a judge to run a campaign by putting up signs with the likes of ”tough on crime” and other slogans as this could be a potential conflict with their duties.

I would support doing as other states do and allowing the public to have a retention vote on judges.  A simple yes or no question on the ballot about retaining a judge, such as how Florida does, would be good to add to the processes the are now in place for judge election.  The General Assembly in Virginia holds judges accountable and that process should be kept as is with very little change.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 10:24 am and is filed under Virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.