PERSPECTIVE ON THE COURTS : Qualified Jurists or Savvy Politicos? : To preserve judicial independence, all judges should be appointed; none should have to run for ‘reelection.’

The Simpson trial and other sensational Court TV crime cases have focused attention as never before on our state court judges. The intense spotlight creates an opportunity to raise anew a question: Should judges have to endure political-style campaigns to become judges? Many legal and judicial experts think not. I share this view, and a recent professional experience confirms it.

While most judges are appointed by the governor, a quirk in the law requires judicial vacancies in gubernatorial election years to be filled by election. This finds them running for office countywide, seeking support from millions of voters who know virtually nothing about them. In addition, judges who are initially appointed must stand for election at the end of their terms.

I was the election-law attorney for a successful Los Angeles Superior Court candidate, a retiring legislator, in litigation with his opponent over the accuracy of their ballot statements and ballot titles. Since voters get nearly all of their information about judicial candidates from ballot descriptions, their accuracy can become the principal battleground in any contested judicial campaign.

My client will be an outstanding judge. But the fact that his election could have hinged on the appeal of a three-word ballot title is precisely what is wrong with a system that elects judges by popular vote.

Maintaining the dignity of our judges is vital to preserving their legitimacy and ability to command public respect. Campaigns in which judges must run for office like ordinary politicians demean their stature and diminish the credibility of our judicial system.

As candidates, for example, judges must raise campaign funds. Most, being lawyers, obtain funds from other lawyers. Some of these campaign contributors will later appear in the judges’ courtrooms seeking relief for their clients. The possibility that elected judges could choose to hear contributors’ cases and rule in favor of their clients without proper disclosure of the relationship places them in potentially compromising positions.

Like ordinary politicians, judicial candidates will use litigation as a weapon to gain an advantage over their opponent. Such tactics inevitably draw the courts into partisan politics and require them to rule for and against competing judicial candidates, one of whom will soon become a colleague. This ability to affect the outcome of a judicial election places sitting judges in an uncomfortable position, yet it is one into which they are thrust by the current system.

Such litigation also can produce court findings that one or both of the candidates have been “guilty” of misleading the public. Judges must be above suspicion. A victorious judicial candidate who was found to have misled the voters during the campaign--even if the court’s ruling was wrong or questionable--would take the bench with a permanent stain on his record.

Like ordinary politicians, judicial candidates and their campaign handlers also must work the media, exploiting and putting the best possible spin on campaign issues, including election-related court rulings. In short, judicial candidates must lower themselves and endure the indignities of an ordinary political campaign to achieve a position in society that should be above politics.

It is time to change the laws that require our state court judges to run for office. All judges should be appointed by the governor on a bipartisan basis. The appointments would be recommended by a panel appointed by the governor, Assembly Speaker, Senate president and state Supreme Court chief justice. Judges should not be required to run for “reelection.” They should serve fixed terms of sufficiently long duration to ensure adequate independence and opportunity for professional growth and service. At the end of their terms, their qualifications for further service would be examined by the independent review panel. The governor then would have the option of reappointing a judge or naming another person from the independent candidate pool.

Restoring public faith in government can only be helped by removing our judges from politics and placing them above the fray. Judge Lance Ito, who is presiding over the O.J. Simpson murder trial, was appointed. Let’s guarantee that the judges who try the big cases of the future also will be picked for their qualifications, not for their popular three-word ballot titles.