LATEST NEWS

The Missouri House Committee on General Laws will be considering two bills THIS WEEK that would weaken the Missouri nonpartisan court plan, which ensures fair and impartial courts.
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A small group of individuals, hiding behind the name, Better Courts for Missouri, claim to be a "coalition of Missourians from all walks of life." As with the Adam Smith Foundation, there is no evidence of members of this so-called coalition or who is affiliated with the organization. Anyone can put up a website and claim to be a "coalition," but to be credible, the names of the individuals and organizations standing behind it should be released. If the individuals promoting this so-called coalition really want what’s best for Missouri’s courts, then why the shroud of secrecy?
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Jefferson City — St. Louis attorney William Placke’s plan to undermine the Missouri Non Partisan Court Plan for choosing judges is being circulated in an attempt to convince voters that the Plan denies them input to the judicial selection and retention process.
“This revamping of the plan in the guise of giving the public more involvement in the process is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Chip Robertson, former chief justice and spokesman of Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts. “We believe Mr. Placke’s plan would do more to inject politics into the process than the proposals put forth during the last legislative session would have.

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Following a summer fraught with criticism of the method by which a slot on Missouri’s Supreme Court would be filled, six former chief justices of the Court have joined an organization formed to protect Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan and preserve the independence of the judiciary.
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Chip Robertson: "Gov. Blunt has demonstrated his allegiance to the Missouri constitution and to Missouri’s 70-year history of leading the nation in selecting judges according to a nonpartisan selection method. The Governor took an oath to uphold the Missouri constitution and he has upheld that oath by selecting one of the Supreme Court nominees from a panel put forth by the Appellate Judicial Commission."
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State Rep. Ed Emery (R) is carrying the water for the Republicans’ attack on the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan. He has filed House Joint Resolution 73 that would put judicial appointments squarely in the governor’s pork barrel.
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Missouri and Illinois take entirely different approaches to selecting judges for their courts of appeals — the multi-judge panels charged with reviewing decisions of lower courts.

When a vacancy occurs on one of Missouri’s three appellate courts (Eastern, Western and Southern), lawyers and lower-court judges who want to move up to the appeals bench file applications with the seven-member Appellate Judicial Commission. The commission consists of the chief judge of the state Supreme Court, three people elected by members of the Missouri Bar and three people appointed by the governor for terms that do not coincide with the governor’s.

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A December 2007 poll of voters in Missouri paints a profile that a noisy minority won’t particularly care for: Voters of all stripes strongly back the state’s model system of judicial selection, with 71 percent supporting the current system for choosing many state judges.
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A campaign launched to support Missouri’s system for choosing judges looks to be active during the legislation session which begins in January. The group is called Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts. Its spokesman is Chip Robertson, the former Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court. It was formed to support the Missouri Non Partisan Court Plan which has come under fire of late, mainly from conservative groups. The group has conducted a public relations campaign to convince Missourians about the value of the Missouri Plan. Missourians for Fair and Impartial Courts has joined with the Missouri Bar, the organization that represents the state’s lawyers, as the primary supporters of the plan adopted by voters in 1942.
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A local senator’s crusade for the Missouri Sunshine Law may appear out of character after looking at his track record.
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