NEWS RELEASE
The National
Center for State Courts
300 Newport Avenue · Williamsburg, Virginia 23185
Contact:
Lorri Montgomery
Communications Manager
The National Center for State Courts
757.259.1525
Experts
to Address Increasingly Costly and Bitter Judicial Elections
Do hard-hitting campaigns undermine fair and impartial courts?
Williamsburg,
VA (Oct. 22, 2001) – Last year outside parties helped pour more
than $45 million into state judge campaigns that are growing
"nastier, noisier, and costlier." In America, where
almost nine out of 10 judges are elected, can our courts survive
politics as usual? Can anything be done to curb the spiral of
acrimony and partisanship — and fortify public confidence in
fair and impartial courts — without infringing on the First Amendment
rights of candidates and their supporters?
Legal
reformers have been summoned to Chicago on Nov. 9–10 by Indiana Chief
Justice Randall Shepard and five other state chief justices —
including Shirley Abrahamson (WI), Norman S. Fletcher (GA), Thomas Moyer
(OH), Thomas Phillips (TX), and William Ray Price (former Chief Justice,
MO) — to consider what can be done. The National Symposium on
Judicial Campaign Conduct and the First Amendment will bring
together more than 60 state chief justices, judges, constitutional
scholars, attorneys, and civic leaders to lay out a road map for reform
in the states.
Participants
will confront two acute problems:
(1)
Increasingly, courts are striking down long-standing judicial ethics
codes designed to restrict questionable conduct in judicial campaigns.
(2)
As non-candidates participate in judicial campaigns, the selection of
judges risks turning into “politics as usual” — undercutting
public confidence in the fairness and impartiality of our courts.
The
Symposium was recommended at last year’s National Summit on Improving
Judicial Selection, where the participants, led by 17 state chief
justices, urged extra attention to these two problems. The
Symposium will release new data on the growing politicization of
judicial elections, provide fresh analyses of the latest relevant
Constitutional cases, and unveil cutting-edge reform proposals that
could soon be introduced in state legislatures and by state appellate
courts around the country.
WHAT:
National Symposium on Judicial Campaign Conduct and the First
Amendment
WHERE: Embassy Suites Downtown Lakefront Hotel,
511 North Columbus Drive, Chicago
WHEN: November 9 -10, 2001
CONTACT: Lorri Montgomery, National Center for State Courts, (757)
259-1525 or by email
at lmontgomery@ncsc.dni.us
All sessions are open to the media.
Please
see attached agenda and list of participants’ briefing papers.
The Symposium Is Organized By The National Center For State Courts,
An Independent
Non-Profit Organization, Headquartered In Williamsburg, Va.
For more information about the Symposium, click on The National
Center’s Web site at www.ncsconline.org.
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