You can’t tell me you know what you’re doing in the voting booth when it comes to judges. Yet, depending on where you live and which party’s primary you vote in, you could face dozens of judicial choices on March 20th.
There is some help for the jurisprudentially clueless. The Chicago Council of Lawyers just released ratings of those running to serve on the bench.
Some regard lawyers’ evaluations of judicial candidates as suspect, in a fox-guarding-the-henhouse way. They hear axes grinding, and assume that bar association ratings involve courthouse cronies rewarding their pals, and inept lawyers retaliating against tough judges who brook no nonsense in the courtroom.
There may be some of that, but the number of people and bar associations involved in the Chicago Council process limits the possibility that its recommendations are based more on personality or politics than on performance and professionalism.
And, really, what’s the alternative to studying what lawyers recommend?
As noted here before, though newspaper endorsements can be helpful, the Sun Times has announced it won’t endorse any candidates this year.
You can ask friends with experience in the justice system, but you’d be lucky to find someone familiar with even half the judges and judicial challengers on your ballot.
Lots of folks vote straight party tickets, but that won’t be helpful in the March primary. Others follow the recommendations of politicians.
Too often, though, people vote their gut reaction to names, frequently casting ballots for an ethnic name that resembles their own. If a candidate’s name appeals to more than one powerful voting bloc (think Jose O’Quinn), so much the better. In Chicago, you could call it the Pucinski Principle.
Aurelia Pucinski gets lots of votes because people remember her dad Roman, a former congressman and alderman. She’s ascended the judicial ladder quickly, elected as a trial judge in 2004 and an appellate judge in 2010. Both times, the Chicago Council of Lawyers rated her “Not Qualified”. They’re doing it again, now that she’s running for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
Would the people who’ve voted Judge Pucinski into office have supported her if they’d read what other lawyers had said of her? The Council of Lawyers found many of its members “questioned her knowledge of the law”, while other lawyers found “her willingness to take an advocacy role while on the bench to be inappropriate.”
How sad it would if name recognition were to trump clearly superior qualifications of two of Pucinski’s rivals.
About Justice Mary Jane Theis, appointed to the Supreme Court in 2010, the Council of Lawyers concludes:
“Judge Theis is considered to have outstanding legal ability and has received accolades from her judicial performance in a variety of trial court arenas, in the Appellate Court, and as an appointed Supreme Court Justice. She is praised as a scholar who both teaches and publishes. Her integrity is unquestioned, and she has an excellent temperament.”
Theis gets the Council’s best rating— Highly Qualified.
Appellate Judge Joy Cunningham gets only slightly fainter praise:
“Judge Cunningham was praised as a good practitioner and as a solid, hard-working jurist with good legal ability and temperament…She reportedly asks good questions during oral argument and writes well- reasoned opinions. The Council in 2006 found her Well Qualified for the Appellate Court and finds her Well Qualified for the Supreme Court.”
There’s good reason to ask whether the vote of an uninformed public is really the best way to put judges on the bench, but that’s a whole ‘nother column. Bar recommendations at least provide a little grist for election-day decision-making, making judicial voting more than a “Pucinski Principle” name game.
Comments