JudgesOnMerit.Org Makes The Case For Judicial Elections
September 2, 2008
Yesterday’s Topeka, Kansas Capital-Journal has a farewell to retiring Shawnee County District Court Judge Matthew Dowd, who sings the praises of “merit” selection (although he himself was elected 31 years ago) based on the following argument:
With today’s high-dollar campaigns and TV and media pressure, there is more likelihood of getting a ringer, who is articulate and has a lot of funds but is not really the type of person who should be a judge.
Judge Dowd’s words extolling “merit” selection are standard boilerplate among those who want to revoke the right of Americans to vote for state judges, but our friends over at JudgesOnMerit were so impressed they led with his comments and thanked him profusely “for letting us know what a judge thinks about how we should be selecting judges.”
I hate to disrupt the swooning at JudgesOnMerit, but there just might be another reason why Judge Dowd didn’t want to face the people in an election – one that’s not quite so high-minded as the fear that politics is somehow polluting our courts.
In recent years, you see, Judge Dowd has become notorious as the Favorite Judge of Kansas Sex Offenders. “Shocking. Unacceptable. Disgusting.” That’s what a blistering editorial at the same Capital-Journal said a few months back after Judge Dowd awarded probation to a man who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 6- and a 7-year-old child, rather than life in prison as called for under Kansas sentencing guidelines.
As I wrote in a July post, according to the Capital-Journal, letting vicious, vile sex offenders walk free has become routine for Judge Dowd. In June, he reduced the sentence of a man who savagely raped a 5-year-old child. Last year, Judge Dowd gave three years probation to a man “convicted by a jury of 17 felony counts of raping and sodomizing a 14-year-old girl,” rather than the 13 years allowed under Kansas sentencing guidelines. And instead of the 12-year prison term due a man convicted for soliciting sex over the Internet with who he thought was a 13-year-old girl, Judge Dowd granted probation.
The Capital-Journal editorial criticized Judge Dowd for having “all too frequently thumbed his nose at the community” in sentencing violent sex offenders. Judge Dowd’s abuse of his judicial power even led the Capital-Journal to rethink its past “reluctance about the prospect of adopting judicial elections.” The editors know that the “merit” selection scheme supported by JudgesOnMerit insulates judges like Matthew Dowd from the people they are supposed to serve and allows them to stay on the bench. Democratic elections, on the other hand, ensure that voters have a check on the type of judicial abuse Dowd personifies.
Most ordinary people view Judge Dowd’s career of coddling violent sex offenders as strong evidence that judges should be held accountable through democratic elections. JudgesOnMerit examines this same record and concludes we should defer to Dowd on “how we should be selecting judges.” Maybe that’s one reason the group has been so unsuccessful in pushing their scheme in Pennsylvania – and why “merit” selection is being challenged in Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas and other states.