Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990                   TAG: 9003081611
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: By ROB EURE POLITICAL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGES BARRED FROM BIASED CLUBS

Del. Steve Agee, R-Salem, slipped an amendment onto a measure sponsored by Sen. Robert Scott, D-Newport News, to specifically restrict judges from "membership in any organization which practices invidious discrimination."

Scott said later that he gladly accepted Agee's amendment and expected it to pass easily on the Senate floor. "Mr. Agee's amendment does more directly what my bill did indirectly," Scott said.

Scott's original measure would have required the state Supreme Court to rewrite yearly the Canons of Judicial Conduct - the official rules governing judicial activity - and include standards of conduct adopted by the American Bar Association. The ABA is expected to adopt a specific standard later this year against membership in discriminatory clubs. The ABA standards already cite discriminatory clubs as inappropriate for judges.

Agee surprised many members of the House with his amendment, which was adopted 84-10 without discussion. Speaker A.L. Philpott of Bassett, Republican Dels. C. Jefferson Stafford of Pearisburg and Tommy Baker of Radford and independent Lacy Putney of Bedford were among those who voted against the bill.

"It's time for Virginia to go ahead and state plainly what we think the canon ought to be," Agee said.

Last year, Del. William Robinson, D-Norfolk, introduced a resolution stating that the House and Senate Courts of Justice committees would find a judicial candidate unqualified if he or she violated the ABA ethics standards.

Since then, judicial candidates routinely have been asked about their club affiliations.

Robinson said Wednesday that the ease with which Agee's amendment passed "shows how far we've come. Five years ago, that amendment might have failed."

Agee said he wanted the prohibition on judges belonging to discriminatory clubs clearly stated to "ensure public confidence that the judiciary is impartial."

Judicial candidates' club membership has held up several state court appointments in recent years, said Oscar Blayton, a Hampton lawyer who chairs the Virginia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's committee on judges and clubs.

In 1988, U.S. Sen. John Warner's nomination of Newport News lawyer Shannon Mason for the a federal district judgeship was stopped by Mason's membership in the James River Country Club.