Panel to Discuss Virginia Courts and Judiciary

The Waynesboro News Virginian has a timely story that needs much more publicity - the Virginia Coalition for Open Government will be holding a meeting that will look at both the judicial selection process, controlled by the General Assembly, and other transparency issues. Virginia has some very good judges, but it also has some very bad ones. Moreover, the enforcement of the Canons of Judicial Conduct are an absolute farce with the blatant violation of the Canons having no effect on the outcome of cases where misconduct occurred. The litigant harmed by prejudice is left with only one recourse: appealing the adverse outcome with added cost and expense involved and no guarantee of the ruling being overturned. The biased or homophobic judge (the majority of gays in divorce cases for instance appear to receive punative treatment for "choosing" to be gay and judges get away with this violation of the Canons regularly) may or may not get their wrist slapped, but most often it seems no adverse consequence to the offending judge is the norm. Here are some story highlights:

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Virginia’s judiciary will be the top topic of an annual conference this fall on opening the working of government to public view. The judicial selection process, controlled by the General Assembly, and a hot-button proposal to make jurors anonymous in criminal cases will be debated by panelists at Access 2009, a conference convened by the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. The judicial topics will occupy two of the four panels on the second day of the conference, scheduled for Oct. 15 and 16 at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel in Staunton.

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A group of citizens, known as the “Pitchfork Rebellion,” have called this year for a public examination of judicial selection. Virginia is one of two states in which the legislature elects judges, but direct election isn’t the primary issue under debate. The group has expressed more concern about the lack of openness in the way judicial candidates are evaluated and chosen, and it wants a public forum on whether to change the selection process and how.

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Whether some changes will be forthcoming will be interesting to watch. Currently, there seems to be few standards for appointment to the bench and judges in the past have been appointed by ultra-conservative members of the General Assembly because of their extreme far right views rather than experience and competence. This needs to end. In addition, the Canons of Judicial Conduct the prohibit biased judges from hearing cases need to start being enforced.