THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996 TAG: 9602070010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By AFSHIN FARASHAHI
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
The recent moves by the state Senate to open up the selection of judges is admirable in that, theoretically at least, more individuals will be considered for judgeships in the commonwealth. It remains to be seen whether this will have any effect on the process of selecting judges, especially since the House of Delegates is sticking with business as usual. In any event, a significant and long-standing problem remains with how the commonwealth chooses its jurists: The state legislators who happen to be practicing attorneys frequently appear and litigate cases before the very judges they helped to elevate to the beach.
The Virginia Code of Professional Responsibility and the Canons of Judicial Conduct direct attorneys and judges to avoid even the appearance of professional impropriety. This rule certainly comes to mind when a state delegate or senator appears before a judge who is there because of the vote of that legislator. Furthermore, frequently it is not just that the legislator/lawyer voted for the judge; a local legislator has influence over who becomes a judge, and over who remains a judge. Aside from the specific rules of ethics, how much confidence can the increasingly cynical public have in this system?
Admittedly, the solution to this problem is not easy. Selecting judges by popular vote, rather than by the General Assembly, would create new problems, such as politician/judges who make decisions while eyeing the next election. Prohibiting the legislator/attorneys from practicing before the courts would not be fair to them, given the part-time nature of the legislator's job (though ``part-time'' describes the pay more than the amount of work performed).
A more satisfactory solution may be for the local legislators who are attorneys to take themselves out of the selection process when a judgeship becomes available in their local courts and leave it to the nonlawyer legislator and/or local bar associations to submit to the General Assembly the names of those deemed qualified. Furthermore, the legislators/attorneys should agree (again, voluntarily) not to vote on the election of the judges and not to lobby their colleagues to vote one way or the other.
This proposal will not solve all the problems in the selection of the commonwealth's judges, but it will certainly go a long way in building public confidence in the judiciary and even in the politicians.
MEMO: Mr. Farashahi is a prosecutor with the Virginia Beach commonwealth's
attorney's office. The views expressed here are his, not the office's. by CNB