LATEST NEWS

Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts applauds the Appellate Judicial Commission for sending Governor Blunt a balanced panel of three outstanding candidates for the vacancy on the Missouri Supreme Court.
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The Missouri House Committee on General Laws will be considering two bills THIS WEEK that would weaken the Missouri nonpartisan court plan, which ensures fair and impartial courts.
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A small group of individuals, hiding behind the name, Better Courts for Missouri, claim to be a "coalition of Missourians from all walks of life." As with the Adam Smith Foundation, there is no evidence of members of this so-called coalition or who is affiliated with the organization. Anyone can put up a website and claim to be a "coalition," but to be credible, the names of the individuals and organizations standing behind it should be released. If the individuals promoting this so-called coalition really want what’s best for Missouri’s courts, then why the shroud of secrecy?
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Jefferson City — St. Louis attorney William Placke’s plan to undermine the Missouri Non Partisan Court Plan for choosing judges is being circulated in an attempt to convince voters that the Plan denies them input to the judicial selection and retention process.
“This revamping of the plan in the guise of giving the public more involvement in the process is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Chip Robertson, former chief justice and spokesman of Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts. “We believe Mr. Placke’s plan would do more to inject politics into the process than the proposals put forth during the last legislative session would have.

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Following a summer fraught with criticism of the method by which a slot on Missouri’s Supreme Court would be filled, six former chief justices of the Court have joined an organization formed to protect Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan and preserve the independence of the judiciary.
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On Nov. 4, voters in Greene County -- the state’s 31st Judicial Circuit -- approved a ballot initiative that changes the county’s method for choosing the trial judges that hear cases in state court.

No longer will candidates for those positions have to campaign like candidates for political office. Instead, Greene County will use the Missouri non-partisan plan to select its trial judges and become the sixth judicial circuit in the state to do so -- along with the circuits serving Jackson, Clay, Platte and St. Louis counties and the city of St. Louis.
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The fight over judicial selection in Greene County is emerging as a war of the war chests, as groups for and against the Missouri Plan amass large contributions with which to spread their messages.

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You may have heard there will be an election this November. Alongside trivial votes, such as who to choose for president, residents of Greene County will decide whether to adopt Missouri’s non-partisan court plan for their jurisdiction. Under the proposed change, Greene County judges would be selected by Missouri’s governor from a panel of three chosen by a judicial commission, rather than by popular election. The new commission would consist of the county’s chief judge, two citizens selected by the governor, and two lawyers elected by the county bar association.

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State Rep. Ed Emery (R) is carrying the water for the Republicans’ attack on the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan. He has filed House Joint Resolution 73 that would put judicial appointments squarely in the governor’s pork barrel.
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Missouri and Illinois take entirely different approaches to selecting judges for their courts of appeals — the multi-judge panels charged with reviewing decisions of lower courts.

When a vacancy occurs on one of Missouri’s three appellate courts (Eastern, Western and Southern), lawyers and lower-court judges who want to move up to the appeals bench file applications with the seven-member Appellate Judicial Commission. The commission consists of the chief judge of the state Supreme Court, three people elected by members of the Missouri Bar and three people appointed by the governor for terms that do not coincide with the governor’s.

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