ABA’s Wells: Courts face threats on many fronts

The president of the American Bar Association says that courts across the nation are facing potential threats to their independence.

H. Thomas Wells Jr., at Saint Louis University School of Law on Monday as a panelist for a roundtable discussion on the independent judiciary, said the threats ranged from ballot initiatives to partisan elections to rating systems from special interest groups.

“I, at first, believed the concerns were dissonant, but once I sat down and considered them, all were related to potential threats to the fair and impartial judiciary,” Wells said.

American Bar Association President H. Thomas Wells, left, is introduced to recently exonerated prisoner Josh Kezer, center, by Bryan Cave attorney Charlie Weiss, whose pro bono representation freed him. Wells, who is visiting St. Louis this week, enjoyed a Cardinals baseball game on Sunday in the Bryan Cave box. Photo by Karen Elshout

Wells was joined on the panel by Missouri Supreme Court Judge Richard Teitelman, Missouri Bar President Tom Burke, of the Hullverson Law Firm, Chief Judge Nannette Baker for the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District and Martin Kerckhoff, general counsel of Missouri American Water Co.

Doreen Dodson, partner of The Stolar Partnership, served as moderator. Dodson was the first female president of The Missouri Bar and is the immediate past chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Judicial Independence.

The roundtable was hosted by the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis and the ABA.

The discussion concerned the Missouri Plan and whether it needs to be reformed. A constitutional amendment that would make changes to the plan is currently making its way through the Missouri Legislature.

Baker has had the experience of being both on panels for judicial vacancies and on the Appellate Judicial Commission. She expressed concern that opening the selection process would have a chilling effect on who would apply and addressed concerns that the lawyers are controlling the commission.

“Lawyers don’t control the commission,” she said. “When we deliberate, the citizen commissioners have as much input as the lawyers do. In no way do the lawyers bully them into voting for particular people.”

Teitelman said the Nonpartisan Court Plan has allowed for diversity on the courts. He noted that no African-American had ever been elected for statewide office and no woman has ever been elected as governor or attorney general, but the Missouri Supreme Court has three female judges and had one African-American judge. The Appellate Judicial Commission has also appointed numerous African-Americans to the Court of Appeals.

All of the panelists supported the court plan. Proponents of reforms believe they would add to the credibility of the judiciary.

“The courts are not here to serve lawyers but the people,” James Harris, executive director for Better Courts of Missouri, said in a telephone interview. “The reforms add accountability and give people more say [in the selection of judges] and reduce the power of trial attorneys and legal establishments.”

Wells pointed out that no plan can completely remove politics from the judiciary. The goal is to limit it.

“It’s like having a pot on the stove,” he said. “You’re just keeping the boil as low as it can go.”

Wells came to St. Louis to speak at BAMSL’s Law Day Luncheon, which will be held today at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis Riverfront. The Law Day event commemorates the bicentennial year of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth.