Bar Panel Urges Changes in Judicial Screening Board

The judge-screening commission attacked by Republicans for its low rating of Gov. Pete Wilson’s last Supreme Court nominee should be preserved but made less secretive, a State Bar panel recommends.

The proposed changes include allowing a representative of the governor to attend meetings, which are currently closed; announcing the names of judicial candidates while they are being evaluated; and creating a body to review candidates for the appellate courts and state Supreme Court.

The panel was appointed to review the bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominee Evaluation amid controversy over the “unqualified” rating given by the commission to Janice Rogers Brown, an appeals court justice appointed by Wilson to the state’s high court in May.

The commission said she lacked the experience needed for the court and was prone to injecting her political views into her court decisions. Brown was unanimously confirmed to the court by a separate body, the Commission on Judicial Appointments.

The judicial nominee commission, known as the JNE or Jenny Commission, is appointed by the bar and was authorized by a 1980 law to review each of a governor’s judicial candidates and make confidential reports to the governor. Brown was the first judge at any level to be appointed after being rated unqualified.

Some critics, notably retired Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian, have called for elimination of the Jenny Commission in the aftermath of the Brown report. After reviewing the commission’s procedures, the bar committee did not recommend abolition but called for a variety of changes.

The panel proposed making the names of judicial candidates public as soon as the Jenny Commission has circulated questionnaires to lawyers and judges. Currently the names are confidential until the time of appointment. The panel rejected a proposal to tell candidates the names of lawyers who have commented on them.

Another proposal was to create a commission that would include Jenny members, other lawyers and retired judges, to take over evaluations of candidates for higher courts.