Judicial Selection Process Analysis

Selection of judicial personnel differ amongst states in the united States, as all the states have their unique criterion of selection governing how they fill their state and local judiciaries. The five main methods are: Partisan elections, Nonpartisan elections, Legislative elections, gubernatorial appointment, and assisted appointment.

1) The vast majority of the Texas judiciary is chosen through partisan elections. Is this a good way to select judges?

Our judicial branch is essential in the function of our current government and to make valid the constitutional rights of every citizen. In additional, the judicial branch has is established to make sure there is balance of power within the executive and the legislative branches. With this in mind and being a citizen of this country is important to know that the head of the judicial branch is a person that is well prepared and educated to make a rightful a judgement always. Correspondingly, is important to learn who the current Justices of the Supreme Court are and what are their qualifications. Recently, due to a given school assignment I was able to read more and learn more about our current Chief Justice of the United States and the Associate

Each state within the United States of America (USA) has its own unique judicial selection process within its court system. The judicial processes vary from court to court depending on a particular state. This paper analyses these processes, the qualifications for selecting the judges and the steps for removing judges from office, as it applies in the USA states of New York and Texas.

The task for this week was to discuss how the Supreme Court determines which cases to take on. The case that the Supreme Court takes on varies on many different factors, which must go into consideration prior to them choosing a case. The first step in the decision process of the Supreme Court is chose based on four of the nine justices agreeing to grant the petition. The second factor in the decision process is if the justices decide to take a case if it would resolve a major conflict, for example if it would be federal or constitutional. The third reason why the Supreme Court would hear a case is based upon if the lower echelon courts disregard past Supreme Court’s decisions. In this scenario the Supreme Court would take on the case to prove

The process of choose and approve a supreme court justice is a process clearly defined within the constitution. First, it starts with the president. The United States president, according to the constitution, must be the one to nominate possible choices to fill the seat. After that, the nomination must by confirmed by the Senate. All supreme court justices have life long terms, so there will never be a single president that must make all the appointments. If a president if put in a situation where he or she must put in nominate a justice, it can be a very lengthy process. The selection criteria can range anywhere from experience to political ideology.

The judicial system of the United States Constitution is located in Article III of the United States Constitution. The judicial system is headed by the Supreme Court, which has the most amount of power and its purpose is to interpret the Constitutionality of laws and to declare what is to be considered constitutional or unconstitutional. However, the Judicial branch has the least amount of power. The order of the branches from most powerful to least powerful is as follows: Legislative Branch, Executive Branch; Judicial Branch. Each branch has an important part, but we will be focusing on the Judicial Branch.

-The legislatives selects the state court judges in Virginia, which is identical to the selection process for the supreme court, court of appeals and circuit court judges. As outlined in Article VI of the Virginia Constitution, judges are elected by a majority vote of the Virginia General Assembly

If the president nominates the judge; that nominee is then interviewed by a senate judiciary committee, in this processes the committee will send out “blue slips” to the state senators that the judgeship resides in to confirm the nomination. If the state senators do not send back these “blue slips” the nominee is not recommended to the full senate. In the case with Supreme court Justice Nominees, the President works with the White House and multiple states, of the district that the Supreme Court vacancy resides in, instead of just one specific state. At this point after the senate judiciary committed signs off on the nominee, the nominee will then be voted on in the full senate; however, the process can also prove difficult as getting a hearing scheduled for the vote can be blocked by the minority party in the senate via filibuster. Finally, if a nominee is able to get a simple majority vote on the senate floor, they sworn in and appointed as a new federal judge or Supreme Court

In Federalists 78 Hamilton explains that the judicial branch is the “least dangerous” out of all the branches because it only has the power to judge but not to act, unlike the legislative and executive branches. If the judicial branch does come to a ruling in the court, it must go through the other branches before it can actually get carried out. The judicial branch doesn’t have the power to tax or spend because they don’t have access to the purse nor they have the power to use the military.

As old as the birth of our nation, the political controversy that raises the question whether judicial elections are inconsistent with impartial justice is an ongoing debate that is especially important because more than ninety percent of U.S. judicial business is carried out by state courts, and approximately nine in ten of all state court judges face the voters in some type of popular election. In the recent landmark Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar (2015) decision, the Court found that a state has a compelling interest in preserving public confidence in the integrity of its judiciary system. The authority of the court relies solely on the willingness of the people to abide by its decisions. By constitutional principles, proposed by Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 78, the court has no way to persuade the public by either the purse, as in our legislative branch, nor by the sword, as in our executive branch.

Critics of the PA system have criticized it for omitting the merit selection process from its system when selecting appellate judges. Merit selection that is incorporated in most other states takes into account the candidate's character, skills, and experience too, so that the candidate is actually qualified for the position. After having been voted in on a Merit Selection process, and after four years on eh job, the judge again appears before the public in another Merit Selection trial. The public once again decides whether the judge should stand another term. The decision is based on his performance. If the judge is retained, he or she is retained for a ten-year tenure, after which another Merit trial is held again should the judge wish to return.

This decision essentially allowed for the Judicial Branch to be on a more even level of power between the Legislative and Executive branches. John Marshall faced the court with an argument that stated some acts of Congress are unconstitutional which are not binded to the courts. The Judicial Branch has a priority to stand by the Constitution, which can be difficult at times for those members when Congress passed a law that was unconstitutional. John Adams and his Federalists colleagues did everything they could to stay in power. One idea to keep their power was to expand the number of judges in the Federal Judiciary. They passed The Midnight Judges Act which allowed for people to be a judge in the unreasonable hours of the night. Once Jefferson

For us to assess how the Supreme Court determines which case they will hear, we must first analyze the structure of the supreme court and how they get appointed. The original court in set the limit of judges to 6 in 1789, but congress has since has changed that number to 9 in 1869 in which it remains to this day. There is but one Chief Justice who is the highest ranking judge, and 8 associate justices, all of which are uniquely diverse in ethnicity, religion, sex, ideology, and length of tenure.

Interestingly, the voters were in charge of voting for the judges in an election. This mode of judicial election has its benefits in that the public would choose someone they felt was fit to hold the post. The fact that the ballot included a “none of the above” option made the exercise more reliable. However, the system has its downside in that the electorate may be swayed politically in voting for a nonpolitical position. The system is inferior to the Merit Plan used by the majority of states in the U.S. According to the system, the candidates are evaluated for their suitability to become judges. The fact that the system is based on the performance of candidates means that it is a good fit for a nonpartisan branch of government (Price 12). The state of Nevada has attempted to adopt the merit-based system, but during all the elections, the voters have rejected the recommendations. Similarly, the state tried several times to establish a court of appeal, but the voters continuously rejected the move. Recently, in 2014, an amendment meant to establish the court was passed giving way to its formation (“State of