Sedgwick County’s judges are elected to office, with party affiliations, campaign contributions, yard signs and the rest. Voters seem satisfied with the system, despite its obvious dangers. But Johnson County is having a raging debate over whether to go from its merit-based appointment system to an elective system, something both Attorney General Phill Kline and his Democratic challenger, Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison, recommend against. What they said on the subject at a forum last month is worth pondering in both counties:
– “I believe that (the appointment process) is appropriate, and it provides greater transparency within our state,” Kline said.
– “If I’m a litigant in a case and I’m sitting across the courtroom from a lawyer who represents my foe, and I know that the lawyer who represents my foe is the biggest contributor to the judge’s pending re-election campaign, how’s that going to make me feel? And more importantly, how is that going to look?” asked Morrison.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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34 Comments
The quote attributed to me above is taken out of context and incomplete. During my forum with Mr. Morrison in Johnson County we were asked if we supported the current system of selection of Kansas Supreme Court Justices. The current system provides for a narrowing of candidates by a “Judicial Nominating Commission” and then a selection by the Governor. I replied that the current system is flawed in that it happens behind closed doors. I supported a system like our federal system providing for a nomination by the Governor and confirmation by the Senate. This airs out the process and provides transarency. The question did not pertain to District Court Judges where I support the current option process by counties. Counties can opt for “merit selection” like the current method of selecting Supreme Court Justices (which I believe is flawed) or for elections, which on the county level I believe is fine. The quote used does not pertain to district court judges and is incomplete.
This is not necessarily the Eagle’s fault as they often rely on the KC Star to obtain information in the KC area as they are sister papers. This forum was covered by Steve Kraske of the Star and his column covering the event, which the Eagle later ran, omitted critical facts of which Kraske knew. This is somewhat typical of Kraske’s coverage.
In his column Kraske provided an analysis that indicated that Morrison put me on my heels when he attacked me for voting against SB 149 in 1999. Morrison claimed that I voted against the Hard 50 penalty for some murders. In response, and at the forum, I pointed out that SB 149 also contained a 20% reduction in sentences for aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sodomy, rape, 2nd degree murder, conspiracy to murder a law enforcement officer and other heinous crimes. After I e-mailed Kraske a copy of the House Journal and language of the bill with a news release and then called and confirmed receipt of the information. It still did not make his “analysis.”
Accordingly, it is quite possible the Eagle did not have the full context of the above quote. Morrison and I differed on our approach to selection of Supreme Court Justices and he opposed the direct election option regarding District Court Judges – I do not.
For video of the forum and an accurate analysis visit the Internet newspaper http://www.freestatemedia.org Free State places video of the forums on the Internet and then fact checks the various claims by referencing source documents.
Phill Kline
The telling statement in Kline’s response, “he opposed the direct election option regarding District Court Judges – I do not.”, says much about the Kline makeup. No judge, in my mind, should be elected. With elected judges, you get an open chance of politically controlled courts. Bad.
I would rather see a confirmation process, but even that has it’s downside. Witness the current Supreme Court. But the election process strikes me as more money thrown around by special interest groups looking for favorable rulings in future (or present) cases.
Special interests own too much of governments now. We need a more transparent government now as it is.
JM
Appreiciate your comments, however, you fail to recognize the current process of “merit selection” is inherently political. The judicial nominating commission is partially elected and appointed by the Governor. Many of those serving participate in the political process through political contributions etc. The only difference is you do not know about it. With Senate confirmation the process is public, warts and all. This is how I believe things should work. I have no problem with counties choosing to elect as this is a public process as well and campaigns are significantly less expensive than statewide races and, therefore, within reach of the average candidate and not subject to significant conflicts. Conflicts exist with “merit selection” its just that you never hear about them.
Phill Kline
I wondering how much information the average county voter has about who would make a good judge or not. Taking Judge Waller as an example; while I thought he did okay with the BTK case — I know nothing about the quality of his day-to-day work. Where does one get this information besides newspaper editorial/candidate support recommendations?
It is troubling that political influence effects judicial selections, but I can’t see how this could ever be totally eliminated — regardless of the process. Is there a way to determine which process, appointment or election, results in the most competent judges? Has this been researched by any impartial sources?
Phil,
Thank you for your response.Regardless of the way judges take their seats there will be problems. Cronyism, nepotism, the ’scratch my back” syndrome, political favors and the ever present money trails. I believe there is more transparency with the nomination/confirmation process than with the election process.
I really don’t like the idea of campaign contributions being involved in the judicial selection process. It leaves the door wide open for “favors” passed on in judicial rulings.
Of course, there will always be favors passed on to judicial aspirants in the form of nominations, but I think the public knows and expects that. To the victor go the spoils, so judicial nominations under those conditions can hardly be suspect. The same, in my opinion, does not hold true for a judicial election process. We seem to agree on some points, not on others . . . kind of the American way, what?
Phill, shouldnt you be busy reading the files about the sex lives of kansas teenagers?
Geez, what do we elect him for? Teenagers could be having sex right now and you are blogging?
Oh. I forgot. Teen sex is ok if it results in a live birth, but not ok if it results in abortion.
The teens having sex this morning must have pledged to bring the baby to birth, so it could be abandoned by the religious right, the republicans, and the kansas board of education.
Get back to work before ONE MORE TEEN has sex that phill doesnt approve of. You know, girls can do it to boys but boys cant do it to girls, not sure where breast touching fits in, but I am sure phill has a call in to terry and joe and fred right now to get the answer.
…and shouldnt you be in church right now?
The above comments about selection of judges by the EAGLE’s Rhonda Holman and the two responses by Attorney General Phill Kline and bloggers, J.M., D.D and KFG, are interesting.
I believe this is a first for a state-wide politician to participate in the EAGLE’s blog and is welcome in my opinion.
As I see the situation, the issue pertains to 1) Supreme Court judges whose constituency is state-wide and 2) District Court judges whose constituency is within a larger county or over several smaller counties.
Regarding our eight Kansas Supreme Court Justices — the issue is should they be required to campaign and travel state-wide to run for office? Its a daunting and expensive experience to criss-cross a geographically large state like Kansas. The prospect of doing so by older men/women doesn’t lend itself to choosing the best qualified candidates for these judge positions. Also I suppose it could be argued that in most cases, though not all, the issues faced are not Democrat nor Republican, liberal or conservative. So, bottomline regarding State Supreme Court justices, some form of “merit based appointment” seems appropriate. In regard to who would make the actual appointment, the governor or our 40 member Kansas Senate, I would lean towards the Kansas Senate.
Regarding District Court Judges whose district might be within a large county such as Sedgwick, Johnson and Shawnee counties or include several smaller populated counties, I think they should be voted on by the public even though most voters don’t know much about the work habits of the candidates and quality of their decisions. Its up to the newspapers and support groups to get this information into the hands of the voters.
There is another alternative in regard to election of district judges. That is, elect them in the non-partisan April elections. Partisan elections, where candidates display his political party, are held in August and November. Non-partisan elections, where no political label is used, are held in March and April. Here in Sedgwick County, city elections and school board elections are non-partisan elections.
Bottom-line, in my opinion, district court judges should continue to be elected but in a NON-PARTISAN election, without showing political party labels on the ballot. I suppose lawyers and other politicos who read this will have varying opinions which I hope will be expressed.
Another issue that concerns me, is the creeping tendency during the past few years to lengthen political terms of office, generally from two to four years, in the name of efficiency. Also to stagger terms. Basically this makes it very difficult for voters to change directions on issues. The old saying was, “Vote the rascals out.” But this is difficult to do with longer and staggered terms.
“The quote attributed to me above is taken out of context and incomplete.”
Are you sure nathan isnt your pr agent?
It sure would be nice if Mr. Kraske could post HIS response here too.
I see phill has picked up the “blame the media” meme from his uber republican handlers.
I agree with JWink that we should eliminate party affiliations from county election for judges. Party affiliation adds almost nothing to the pool of knowledge that voters have about judicial candidates. And I support processes being adopted that will give more objective information to voters about their judicial candidates. I would much rather judicial candidates be beholden to the electorate than I would going to a Kansas Senate confirmation process. Anyone who has witnessed the last several sessions of the Kansas legislature and the ways they make decisions will realize that adding Senate confirmation will only increase the politicization of the selection process for judges, and will inevitably devolve into discussions about sin and religion. As it stands now, a merit selection system is in place with the Supreme Court Nominating Commission, and the Governor has no direct control over who applies, and which 3 nominees are passed onto the Governor for selection. I think this is the best option right now for selecting appellate judges.
Kelly — I agree with you that it might not be desirable for the Kansas Senate to make the final choice of Supreme Court justices. The idea is to maintain some separation between the legislative and judicial branches.
See this link for a summary of Kansas Judicial facts:
http://www.ajs.org/js/KS_methods.htm
You will note that of the 31 judicial districts in kansas, 17 of the districts use gubernatorial appointment after a nominating commission nominates; 14 districts employ parisan elections. This is close to half and half split.
I am thinking it would be possible to make a comparison of judicial quality between these two methods of judicial selection. The question becomes, what is a marker for judicial quality? I am thinking that lesser incidents of rulings being overturned would be a reasonable marker. This factor might need to standardized so that the number of cases heard in a district is taken into account.
I am wondering if this question could be addressed (if not answered) empirically.
If judges were elected by voters, there would be no researching or even cursory interest on the Judges abilities. People would just vote their party bias, but then that’s what the Republicans are after isn’t it? You can bet if Kansans were predominantly Democratic we wouldn’t be hearing theis argument.The real problem is that judges should be party neutral, and not make their decisions from their political bias.Perhaps the more qualified judges serving would be for the Legal Profession to make nominations to the Governor,he/she then makes their selection from the pool, and the senate confirms or denies the nomination.
Oooh I should have proof read! Perhaps the more qualified judges serving would be for the Legal Profession to make nominations to the Governor,he/she then makes their selection from the pool, and the senate confirms or denies the nomination.!Should be perhaps we would have more qualified Judges serving if the Legal Profession made nominations to the Governor…
Off topic, but since Phil is apparently reading this column: Do you think that extremely harsh punishment of sex with minors, or for that matter pedophiles, increases or decreases the likliehood of desperate measures taken by Ray-Ray? Don’t you think that one lesser crime may well contribute to the greatest crime being committed?
You are right, Darwin’s Disciple, that frequency of reversal would be a objective measure of a judge’s knowledge of the law and accuracy of application of the law. And you are also right that a percentage of reversals in terms of the overall number of cases appealled would be a better reflection of this factor than raw numbers. Empirically, not every appealled decision is published for public view so it would take some digging to get at all the results.
If an attorney feels that a judge has received contributions from the other attorney then they can ask that the judge not hear the case. The Sedgwick County judges do not have a problem obliging them.
The election process has worked very well for Sedgwick County.
Sure, Mr. AG, we’ll check out that freestate site — the one run by your operatives and which uses videos taken by your nephew. I’m sure it’s a very objective source.
Kelly and other judicial watchers: Another factor to be considered is that its not necessarily required that judges be lawyers. I’m not up to date on this subject but I believe there are non-lawyer judges out in western Kansas. I’m not sure which level of judges this applies to. I presume that all supreme court judges and appelate court judges are lawyers.
This might be a reason that judges in about half the district courts are nominated by a committee (of lawyers?) and submitted to the governor to make the appointment. That is, to avoid allowing an out of job, job seeker from filing for election as a judge in some small western Kansas district. I don’t know if this arrangment has been abused.
Any lawyers or judicial observors out there who could comment on this?
“I presume that all supreme court judges and appelate court judges are lawyers.”
This is correct, plus there is length of practice requirement. See the link I provide above.
“Empirically, not every appealled decision is published for public view so it would take some digging to get at all the results.”
Kelly, do you know if appealed cases are published in the University of Kansas Law Review? Do you know of other sources to check for this info? Thanks.
No, DDisciple, the U of K Law Review does not publish appellate decisions. The Clerk of the Supreme Court publishes those decisions, and lists the published and unpublished decisions every Friday on their website. I don’t have the website address with me at home, but you can probably locate it by googgling Kansas Supreme Court.
Thanks, Kelly, I will check it out. I noticed that the Journal of the KS Bar Assoc. publishes not just supreme court reversals/affirmations, but also appellate court reversals/affirmations. It looked like this journal published this information with each journal number/issue. I did not have time to find out if these summaries are exhaustive — that is do they publish them all? Do you know? I am sure I can find out, but wondered if you knew off hand. Thanks, again.
I thought this KC Star article on decision reversals was interesting:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/14133140.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Found the Kansas Supreme Court site. It looks to have everything I was looking for.
http://www.kscourts.org/kscases/datelst/datelst.htm
Thanks for the tip, kelly.
Looks like Phil realalised he had stepped into the lions den, and has beat a quick retreat. Kind of like Bush visiting Iraq.
Steve:
No retreat, just wanted to point out the facts of my position. No need to elaborate further. Some good discussion on this board – some not.
Phill
Like the real Phil Kline (phallus kleinus) would have the time to post here!
He’s too busy peeping in windows and raiding records!
At best “Phill Kline” is a minor staffer or shill.
JR,I just emailed our PhillKline@aol.com. We’ll see if he responds.
Regardless of whether or not this person’s input was phony. This is an interesting subject.
Darwin’s Disciple:
Receive your e-mail and often JR is correct in that I do not have time to post on these blogs. I have followed this thread in that I thought it important for those who come here to understand my position regarding judicial selection.
Often, I am pleased with the interest in issues deomonstrated by those who read and post in these forums. But also, I am often disturbed by the lack of understanding and lack of desire to understand the truth of an issue.In response to JR I would offer the following facts on a significant issue. I am hopeful that JR is interested in the truth and not just the rhertoric he is being fed.
1. Medical records are used in virtually every criminal investigation in existence and in all instances the protections of the 4th amendment are respected. In other words, I can’t “raid” records nor should I be able to. A county attorney, district attorney or the Attorney General must go to court, provide evidence that a compels a judge to have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has taken place and that evidence of the crime is contained in the medical records sought and then the judge issues a subpeona. This is the same fashion a search warrant is obtained.2) My office has been involved in over 700 cases of adults sexually exploiting children since I have been Attorney General. And we have never, ever, (nor has any County and District Attorney in Kansas) prosecuted children of a similar age who engage in consensual relations.3) We do, however, prosecute several cases where force, deception that involve adults and children. Would you have us do something diffent?4) You will never read the name of the child rape victim in the paper and will not read the name of an adult who is a sex crime victim in the paper unless they consent. Why? Because I wrote the law that protects their privacy.5) There are three things a predator of children desires: a) access to children; b) secrecy; c) the cowardice of adults who know of the abuse and look the other way. This is true because less than 1/2 of 1% of children report their own sexual abuse. Many are in co-dependent relationships, they are terrified or threatened into silence.6) Just look at recent stories in Wichita – read Mark McCormick’s recent column – those are they cases that I see in my office.7) My investigation into child rape, failure to report child rape and criminal late-term abortion was not public until the abortion clinics filed a motion that was granted by the Supreme Court to make the matter public and then the clinics held a news conference.8) The clinics then claimed that I was attempting to frighten children and women from having an abortion.9) In all of the other investigations regarding child rape, hospitals, doctors’ offices, health care clinics, etc have complied with a court’s subpeona – only the abortion clincs say the “privacy of the child” renders it unconstitutional for them to be required to respond to a court subpeona.10) This is true despite the fact that Planned Parenthood and Tiller’s clinc reserves the right (as detailed on their web site as reported by AP) to give the very same information to political fundraisers for the pro-choice cause.11) The Kansas County and District Attorneys’ Association voted unanimously to file, and did file, a brief in support of my legal position. This includes Republican and Democrats, pro-choice and pro-life, liberal and conservative and moderate.12) If you want to eliminate Kansas’ statutory rape laws – do it through the legislature – my job is to enforce the law.13) One year ago, the legislature passed and the Governor signed, a new law requiring abortion clincs to report the name, address, phone number and date of abortion along with a tissue sample of the aborted child to the KBI in order to faciliate the protection of children. In other words, Governor Sebelieus, tho publicly critical of me, has codified an approach to this issue even more broad than what I did – I sought a court subpeona in cases of child rape – the Governor signed a bill that requires the report without knowing the age of the father and in all instances of underage abortion.14) The clinics, in the Aid for Women case, are seeking to strike down such “mandatory” reporting laws.15) While the 11 year-old child is in the abortion clinic spending a few minutes with the intake nurse she may say – please don’t tell anyone its’ my boyfriend – meanwhile the 27 – year old step father is out in the car having told her to say that or she is not coming home. Again, if the interaction is between children of a similar age – we don’t prosecute as such will create greater harm to the child.16) We do review live births to underage children and receive those records routinely as such are by law given to KDHE. We forward the live birth information to prosecutors and local authorities for further review. Generally, however, live birth situations do not result in prosecutions because it often involves children of a similar age and exploitation is not present. Most often, on the other hand, underage abortions do involve an exploitive situation as the predator is attempting to eliminate evidence of the rape.17) Kansas law restricts late-term, or post viability abortion. The women receiving abortion services is never under legal scrutiny or jeopardy as the crime of criminal late-term abortion only applies to the abortion doctor. Accordingly, as the court found reasonable suspicion of such crimes, we only sought the medical records relating to such cases and asked that the court remove any identifying information of the women so that their privacy will be protected. In other words, I never sought nor will recieve identifying information of the women. Proving criminal action by the abortion doctor, however, will necessitate a review of the diagnosis and reason for the late-term abortion and that must involve a look at the medical records. Again, I have not asked for, nor do I need the identifying information of the women. You simply must decide – are abortion clinics above the law? The records the court supbeonaed represent specific files with which the court made the requisite 4th amendment finding and represent less than 15 hundreths of 1% of the abortions performed since I have been Attorney General.18) There are several similar investigations taking place in other states (Ohio and Indiana) to name a few and Planned Parenthood’s response is always the same – “fishing expedition.” I don’t “fish,” nor does the 4th amendment allow a judge to engage in such “fishing.”19) My office is engaged in numerous things – from water, to US Supreme Court cases, to consumer protection, to prosecuting homocides, etc. I actually have spent little time on this small aspect of all our efforts to protect children – yet it is a media fixation.20) Just a few other things we’ve done to enhance protections for our children in the past three years: a) established the Cyber Crimes in Kansas City that has brought over 100 federal indictments against Internet predators of children; b) promiting child prostitution used to be probation in Kansas, now its 25 years in prison; c) child porn through a judicial loophole used to be probation – now its 25 years in prison; c) doubled the sentences for rape; d) aggravated solicitation of a child now brings a prison sentence rather than probation; e) we are the first state in the nation to team with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to take the Netsmartz internet safety program into our schools and community to teach parents teachers and children who to be safe on the Internet.
These programs are necessary because child predators are sophisticated and dedicated to harming children. There are websites that teach pedophiles how to be pedophiles – shows how to communicate with a child; where to find children on the Internet and what states have weak laws. These sites used to say “go to Kansas” the laws are weak and there is not a state, local and federal coordinated program to catch those who prey on children. Now they say – stay away from Kansas.
This is what I promised to do when I ran for office and I am doing it. I would hope that all of you would take the time to learn more – and stay away from the cheap sloganeering and repitition of mere rhetoric.
Phill Kline
PS I posting this swiftly without review as I am already late for other matters – please forgive any typos or punctuation errors.
If you want to see how the so-called non-political system of appointing judges works, check out this.
http://www.freestatemedia.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=159&Itemid=40
Up in Topeka is the so-called non-partisan system.
But one of the ‘merit-based’ nominees is obviously very, very political.
Those political connections would come out in a campaign, but tend to be glossed over in the so-called non-political selection process.
If Phill Kline is still reading this thread, I would like your comments on changing election of judges from partisan elections in November to non-partisan elections in April, along with city council and school board elections.
Non-partisan candidates can be political if they wish but no political designations or labels are shown on the ballot. Ordinarily regular Republican and Democratic political parties don’t get involved in these non-partisan elections.
However, non-partisan political parties can take up the slack with names like “Committee for Election of Progressive Judges,” or Committee for County Progress,” if the group supports various non-partisan candidates.
Phill Kline:”9) In all of the other investigations regarding child rape, hospitals, doctors’ offices, health care clinics, etc have complied with a court’s subpoena – only the abortion clinics say the “privacy of the child” renders it unconstitutional for them to be required to respond to a court subpoena.10) This is true despite the fact that Planned Parenthood and Tiller’s clinic reserves the right (as detailed on their web site as reported by AP) to give the very same information to political fundraisers for the pro-choice cause.”
This is very difficult to believe. All physicians and I think nurses, too, are mandatory reporters. That means there is the Kantian type ethical obligation to report child abuse to either the SRS or a Law Enforcement officer. This reporting obligation trumps all other considerations. I have reported child abuse at times when I thought such a report might actually make everyone in the family more messed up than if I did not report it. But, as my son’s old kindergarten teacher used to say “it’s a ‘have to’ and not a ‘free choice’”. Medical professionals who don’t do this are at risk for losing their licenses.
I can’t believe that Dr. Tiller would fail to fulfill this ethical obligation. If true, this is a very serious allegation.
My understanding is that Dr. Tiller supported Mr. Kline’s opponent with large sums of money. A nearly unknown democrat ran Phill a close race. The interest in Dr. Tiller’s clinic had the appearance of political pay-back. If the info Kline is providing above is true, then that changes everything.
Forgive me: I am very skeptical of the above information.
Calling Phill…Where are you?
Like RD said, disappearing when you are clearly losing is point number 13 on “how to be a conservative blogfart”.
I wonder when the KBI will be at my door….