Missouri chief justice proposes judicial selection changes

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The chief justice of Missouri's Supreme Court wants to partially pull back the curtain on the state's largely hidden process for picking certain judges.

The changes proposed by Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith Tuesday would affect judges whom the Appellate Judicial Commission helps select, including her colleagues on the state Supreme Court, as well as judges on Missouri's appellate courts and circuit courts in parts of the Kansas City and St. Louis areas.

Under the state's system, the commission forwards three judicial finalists to the governor for a final selection.

Speaking to House members in the annual State of the Judiciary address, Stith said she favors publicizing, in advance, the qualifications of the three judicial finalists.

Her remarks came as legislative critics seek to overhaul the plan, which they say gives lawyers and other legal insiders too much influence.

The commission currently deliberates in secret and is exempt from the state's open meetings laws. Under Stith's plan, the sessions would remain closed to the public but the time and place of the meetings would be noted in advance.

At the same time, she staunchly defended the system known as the "Missouri Plan," which since its creation in 1940 has served as a national model intended to keep judges from running high-priced political campaigns or from being selected by partisan legislators.

The judges chosen through the system do face retention elections.

"In the nearly three quarters of a century since its adoption, Missouri's nonpartisan merit-selection court plan has worked well in attracting high quality judges in the least political way, and ultimately giving Missouri's voters -- not lawyers, not the governor, not the Legislature and not the Supreme Court -- the final say," she said.

Hours earlier, a House committee considered a bill by Rep. Jim Lembke, R-St. Louis, calling for a constitutional amendment that would scrap the judicial commission in favor of a 10-member panel split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

The revised judicial commission would disclose all applicants, as well as interview questions and answers, and forward a total of five potential candidates to the governor.

The commission would meet in public, although it could choose to interview candidates and deliberate about their qualifications in private.

Under Lembke's proposal, the governor's preferred choice would be subject to Senate confirmation.