Improve Judicial Selection

A man of humble beginnings, he rode a tractor as a young boy on his grandfather's farm in Grundy County. He had dreams of being a professional basketball player.

He didn't play for the Boston Celtics as he had dreamed, but instead that mild-mannered man became an attorney who started his career as a legal aid lawyer. When he opened his own firm in the 1990s, it was a hard economic time. He helped his neighbors, friends and those in need with their unemployment insurance benefits, mortgage foreclosures and auto repossessions. He also did some traffic work, domestic disputes and even some insurance defense work as he earned a living in the profession he grew to love and respect.

Then, in 2000, he ran for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court. Even this unassuming attorney admitted that judicial elections opened doors for "a guy who is a meat-and-potatoes kind of garden-variety, retail-street lawyer in the Quad Cities. Nobody would have selected me from a panel. I probably wouldn't have been on a list back in 2000 to get appointed by the governor" — the words of Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride in an interview on "Justice and Law Weekly," a public service television show sponsored by the Chicago Bar Association, due to air April 17 on WYCC-TV.

Judges like Kilbride need to be encouraged to stay on the bench for stability and predictability as well as for their experience and civility. Little did he know that 10 years later, that same system would place him in an uncalled-for battle to defend his impeccable reputation and to protect the independence of the judiciary.

He was sworn in as chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court just days before the Nov. 2 election last year, assuming the position after Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald announced his retirement. Because of huge amounts of money special interest groups "opposing" him used to finance misleading and false attacks on his judicial record, he had to raise money to win an uncontested retention election.

Working out of his car with a trunk filled with yard signs and with a host of volunteers behind him who believed in the justice's reputation for doing the right thing and following the law, Kilbride spent months on the "campaign trail" — unlike any retention justice before — educating some of the 1.2 million voters in his sprawling district that incorporates 21 counties, reaching from the Mississippi River to Will County.

He spoke about the workings of the judicial system, but was also forced to explain inaccuracies and falsehoods being spread about him by a partisan group focused, not on his competence, but on one decision of his, joined by three other justices, with which the group disagreed. He won with more than 65 percent of the vote. Certainly, the First Amendment allows free speech for all. But when focused partisan interests bully a candidate in a way that is not related to the law or the Constitution, it's time to call them out for making judicial elections too political.

Although the cry for merit selection has again been made in the wake of this unnecessarily expensive retention election, one must not forget that it is the voters of Illinois themselves who decided by ratifying the 1970 Illinois Constitution that the election and retention of judges throughout the state is the preferred way of judicial selection.

Rather than focus on judicial election or merit selection, though, I think we need to continue to find ways to encourage those with the highest qualifications to become and remain judges.

One of my initiatives when I take the reins as CBA president in June will be to examine its Judicial Evaluation Committee and look at how its work can have a greater impact on voters.

Countless hours of volunteered time are put into evaluating judges and potential candidates, with voters barely noticing the recommendations. On the other side of the coin, I want to look into how the evaluation process can be made more transparent and helpful for judges, acting as a sort of report card on their performances on the bench.

Last year, House Speaker Michael Madigan introduced the Illinois Judicial Eligibility Amendment, which contains qualification standards for judges in Illinois. The Illinois Constitution does not require any length of time for an attorney to be licensed before becoming a judge.

House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 57 would require all trial judges to be licensed for at least 10 years before being allowed to sit on the bench, 12 years for appellate judges and 15 years for an Illinois Supreme Court justice. Some argued that the measure would have little impact on the judiciary, since many judges already have extensive experience before reaching the bench. The proposed amendment never reached the floor of the House last year.

We should continue to look at how we select judges and other related issues, such as whether there should be publicly financed elections for judges involved in retention campaigns and whether there should be contribution limits for judicial races.

These are some of the issues that merit close attention before the next cycle of judicial elections.