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Arizona Senator tries to “push back” against state’s supreme court decision by cutting court of appeals from 22 judges to 6

February 21st, 2012

Legislative anger of state supreme court decisions is nothing new, nor is the practice of “punishing” the judiciary as a whole for the decisions of that court. The most visible example so far this year may have been the attempt made in Arizona last week.

Arizona has an independent redistricting commission (IRC). In November 2011, the state’s Senate and Governor attempted to remove the chair of that commission. The chair filed an action in the state’s Supreme Court, which held the attempted removal unconstitutional.

Angry over the decision, a state senator attempted to “push back” against the judiciary as a branch in two ways. The first was an effort to end the state’s merit selection system and replace it with partisan elections (SB 1371 / SCR 1034).

The second would have reduced the state’s Court of Appeals (which did not hear the IRC case and have nothing to do with it) from 22 judges to 6 (SB 1372).

The video below is from the February 13, 2012 hearing on these bills before the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee.

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Posted in Selection, Structure Changes, Video

Wisconsin debates making battery on court staff a felony

February 15th, 2012

Many states have enhanced penalties for assaults or other crimes committed against judges for performing their functions as officers of the third branch. Many states are however moving to increase the penalties for crimes committed against court staff in the course of their duties. This year one such bill is Wisconsin’s AB 424. The bill

  • Makes battery or threat to a court employee a Class I felony (Wisconsin felonies range in severity from A down to I).
  • Makes it a Class I felony to threaten to cause damage to a courthouse and if the threatened action could result in bodily harm to a judge or court employee.

The Wisconsin Assembly’s Judiciary and Ethics Committee heard testimony on the bill February 2, 2012, the video of which is below.

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Posted in Other, Video

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New Hampshire House votes to keep the state’s Supreme Court in constitution; 47 Republicans vote to remove it

February 3rd, 2012

An idea, popular among Republican presidential candidates, is to simply delete or remove from statute the court(s) that issue opinions that they disagree with. A similar effort was put in place in New Hampshire with respect to their Supreme and Superior (main trial) Courts. Under CACR 25, a 1966 constitutional amendment that specifically named the Supreme and Superior Courts in the state’s constitution would be eliminated, allowing the legislature to end the existence of the courts by statute (HB 1131 would set up a committee to work out the details on that).

In debate on the House floor on February 1, 2012 proponents argued that the 1966 put too much power into the hands of the judiciary, “fractured the balance of power” between the branches and that the supreme court was a “super power”, not a co-equal branch. Proponents argued that it would “subordinate” the judiciary to the legislature.

The video below is from the floor debate on CACR 25. The final vote was 251 in favor, 47 opposed (all Republicans).

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Posted in Structure Changes, Video

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Should judges be forced to retire at 70? 75? Florida’s Senate Judiciary Committee debates the issue

January 20th, 2012

The issue of mandatory judicial retirement ages has grown more and more pressing as the general populace sees its life expectancy increase. Several state legislatures have grappled with the issue. Below is a hearing conducted before the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee on January 19, 2012 on SJR 408, an effort to increase Florida’s mandatory retirement age.

Florida’s Constitution specifies in Art. V, Sec. 8 that judges must retire at age 70, but may serve out their current term if they have already served roe than 50% of it.

No justice or judge shall serve after attaining the age of seventy years except upon temporary assignment or to complete a term, one-half of which has been served.

SJR 408 changes the bolded text to read “seventy five”. It also makes some grammatical corrections (changes “No justice or judge…” to “A justice or judge…”)

The video below gives some of the pros and cons heard at the committee hearing. In the end, the bill passed 5-0 and was sent to the Senate Budget Committee.

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Posted in Qualification & Terms, Video

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Should all judges be attorneys? Wisconsin considers the issue.

December 15th, 2011

About 30 states permit at least some of their judges to be non-attorneys, yet a great deal of legislative activity in the past few years has been focused on requiring all judges be lawyers. Wisconsin is considering such a change with respect to its municipal court judges. Proponents and opponents weighed in before the Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Judiciary and Ethics on December 15, 2011.

 

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Posted in Qualification & Terms, Video

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Minnesota: Should judicial disciplinary board be used to review merits of judicial decisions?

November 21st, 2011

Several states have seen legislative efforts to change the composition and role/function of their judicial disciplinary bodies in 2011. Among the motivating factors are disgruntled litigants who, finding their appeals rejected, wish nevertheless to “hold judges accountable.” Such language was and is at the forefront of the impeachment efforts underway in New Hampshire. Media reports indicate much of the testimony heard before a Tennessee committee regarding that state’s judicial disciplinary body focused on disagreements with the decisions rendered by judges as well.

Minnesota’s Senate considered the issue in the form of hearings conducted on November 17 before its Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. At issue was HB 1568, the latest in a series of bills introduced in the last several years that would have allowed the Board of Judicial Standards to examine the merits of judicial decisions and used the Boards disapproval or disagreement as the basis for disciplinary actions against the jurist. Several Senators who spoke in favor of the bill did so with an eye towards using the judicial disciplinary process as a means to put pressure on the courts to rule certain ways or to provide a free or low cost alternative to an appeal.

Sen. Michael Jungbauer (R): “I’ve heard many, many issues about judges and cases and people always tell me they feel just this empty feeling when a judge rules something and they disagree with it but maybe don’t have the money or the wherewithal to bring it somewhere else.”

Sen. Dave Thompson (R): “The judiciary has taken on a much more significant role in our society that it should have through asserting itself overly aggressively in the area of judicial review and other things…So the problem we have here is judges are too significant, which is why how we select them and how we discipline them and how we review their performance has become far more important that it ought to be and until the judiciary is willing to see its role as less significant in our society and until legislatures are willing to do the politically difficult thing and ask judges about the decisions that they make, we’ll never solve the problem.”

The video below is from that November 17 and includes those portions that discussed changes to the Board and its role/function.

 

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Posted in Qualification & Terms, Rule Making Authority, Video

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Ohio Issue 1: Legislative Opponents

October 25th, 2011

Proponents of Issue 1 (then known as HJR 1) in the Ohio House* made several arguments against the proposal. The video below outlines many of them, but they can be (and have been for electoral purposes here) summarized as follows:

  • The current system works fine
  • The current age limit prevents an entrenched judiciary
  • Retired judges can be recalled to service by the Supreme Court; this will make that pool of retired judges even older
  • The sections repealing Supreme Court commissions and courts of conciliation should be dealt with separately

*There was no Senate opposition

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Posted in Selection, Special Edition, Structure Changes, Video

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Ohio Issue 1: Legislative Proponents

October 24th, 2011

Proponents of Issue 1 (then known as HJR 1) in the Ohio House and Senate made several arguments in favor of the proposal. The video below outlines many of them, but they can be (and have been for electoral purposes here) summarized as follows:

  • The proposal keeps experience, knowledge, and integrity in the judicial system
  • The proposal includes rigorous judicial accountability
  • The proposal creates no additional financial burden

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Posted in Qualification & Terms, Selection, Special Edition, Structure Changes, Video

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Video: New Hampshire House “repudiates” state supreme court advisory opinion

October 13th, 2011

Greetings Andrew Cohen readers!

As promised, here are video excerpts from the New Hampshire House floor activity on HR 13 on October 12 (all prior posts on subject found here). The video after the fold is the entire floor proceeding.

» Read more: Video: New Hampshire House “repudiates” state supreme court advisory opinion

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Posted in Jurisdiction, Other, Video

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Florida Senate’s proposal to pay judges incentive bonuses for disposing of cases faster

October 6th, 2011

Should judges be paid an incentive “bonus” if they or their circuit dispose of a certain number of cases as determined by the legislature? That was the topic of debate for the Florida Senate in March and April of 2011.

The plan was first introduced in the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations on March 17. The plan consisted of three elements:

  1. $10,820,160 in appropriations for the Judicial Caseload Incentive Plan
  2. A set of circuit-by-circuit performances goals for FY 2011-12 for the state’s two levels of trial court (Circuit and County), broken down by casetype and action. (for details, see pdf pages 14 to 18 here)
  3. A quarterly review as to the meeting of the goals. Achievement would mean a $3,000 for each judge in the circuit with the assigned casetype (i.e. civil or criminal).

The statutory language for the plan can be found in Section 18 of SPB 7086 / SB 2002 and Section 1 of SPB 7120 / SB 2116.

Debate began in the Budget subcommittee on March 17 and carried over to March 21. Proponents argued an incentive program was a way to “light the fire” under judges who were perceived of as being slow to clear their dockets. Opponents argued that connecting money for judges to their disposal of cases would be horrible in terms of the appearance of propriety.

A modified version of the plan focusing on civil cases only was adopted by the full Senate Budget Committee and the full Senate but was ultimately rejected in a House/Senate conference committee.

Selected excerpts from the subcommittee and committees hearings can be found in the video below. Full video from the subcommittee and committee proceedings are below the fold.

» Read more: Florida Senate’s proposal to pay judges incentive bonuses for disposing of cases faster

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Posted in Salary & Budget, Video

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