Voting for judges

The Kansas City Star

Missouri is fortunate to have a good system for appointing and retaining statewide judges.

By keeping the process nonpartisan, the state has avoided the spectacle of judicial candidates raising money and attacking one another on television.

Under Missouri's Nonpartisan Court Plan, judges on the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals are appointed by the governor, after a commission selects three nominees. Judges periodically must go before voters in a retention election, and obtain at least 50 percent approval.

Western District Court of Appeals Judges Patricia Breckenridge and Paul Michael Spinden, and Missouri Supreme Court Judge Richard B. Teitelman, are up for retention Nov. 2. In a survey done by the Missouri Bar, all three received approval ratings of greater than 80 percent from lawyers who practice before them. They should be retained.

An 11th-hour effort against Teitelman has surfaced by a group called Missourians Against Liberal Judges employing the usual hot-button issues. Voters need to remember that judges are chosen to uphold the law, not cater to certain ideological tests.

Teitelman is a respected jurist who spent many years providing legal services to indigent clients as executive director of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. He has served on the Missouri Court of Appeals. His integrity and legal credentials are above reproach.

The campaign to remove him shows only why that process should never be easy.