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The first female justice to the Supreme Court of the United States spent Monday at the West Virginia University College of Law.
Sandra Day O’Connor, who served as a supreme court justice from 1981 until her retirement in 2006, acted as honorary chair to the Independent Commission on Judicial Reform in the state.
The commission, formed by Gov. Joe Manchin, was comprised of 10 representatives of legal profession in the state of West Virginia, ranging from private practitioners to professors to the dean of WVU’s College of Law.
The commission was met by legal experts representing public and corporate entities to discuss the nature of West Virginia’s judicial standing relative to the rest of the country and to propose potential solutions to problems.
John Doyle of the West Virginia House of Delegates offered, in plain terms, what is wrong with the judicial system in the state.
"It smells," Doyle said.
"The classic smell test, it doesn’t pass it."
Doyle said that the problem with the state Supreme Court, down to the Circuit Court, was the fact that its judges were elected in partisan elections and were being voted for not based on merits but on political affiliations, something inconsequential to a judge whose job it was to enforce and interpret the law.
"I think that anything, besides what we’re doing now, would be better than what we’re doing," Doyle said.
For her part, O’Connor left the most of the comments on individual representatives to other members of the committee, chiming in sparingly, leaving presenters appearing intimidated by her remarks.
Doyle prefaced his remarks with a dedication to O’Connor’s visit: "You do us a great honor by being here."
"I like your state," O’Connor said.
Much of the commission’s discussion focused on the problem of the perception that the state’s judicial system seems to face.
A good deal of time with presenters to the commission was spent fielding the recrimination that West Virginia has become a "judicial hellhole." The American Tort Reform Association has identified West Virginia as such for two consecutive years, saying the state’s legal process hampers business interests entering the state.
Allan Karlin, immediate past president of the West Virginia Association for Justice, said that eliminating partisan elections would not affect the overall outcome of elected judges.
"In a nonpartisan election, the only thing a voter would know about who’s on the ballot is who spent the most (money)," Karlin said.
When Karlin referred to an unfamiliar judicial overhaul project in New England he thought was pertinent to the discussion, O’Connor corrected him.
"(It) was designed to make fewer lawyers ... nobody likes them," O’Connor said, with a wave of laughter in response.
O’Connor was appointed to her seat by former Republican President Ronald Reagan and has been an outspoken proponent of a nonpartisan commission and a merit-based approach to appointing judges.
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