Anne Arundel County Circuit Court in Annapolis. (File photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters)
A decades-old discussion on whether to change the way Maryland’s circuit court judges are elected will continue for at least another year.
“The votes are not there,” said Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee and sponsor of Senate Bill 630. “Just going to put it [the bill] in the drawer. We will continue to have the debate.”
Without a Senate bill, the House version will also be tucked away for now.
The bills would have asked voters next year whether they want to change the current system where circuit court judges stand for reelection in contested elections, unlike other judges who do not face challengers but are merely voted back in or out on their record.
Critics say the current system puts circuit judges in the potentially unethical position of having to raise funds and curry favor with people whose cases they may be called on to judge. But supporters say that by opening elections up to challengers, the current system allows for a more diverse, and representative, bench than might occur in uncontested elections.
Del. Bernice Mireku-North (D-Montgomery) falls in the latter camp, a point she made at the end of a Legislative Black Caucus meeting last month that divided caucus members.
Mireku-North pointed to a 2020 report from the Texas Commission on Judicial Selection. It said seven states – Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – don’t have voters select trial court judges in contested races.
“Those particular states don’t have the demographics that we have. Why are we making this decision at this time as the state is getting more culturally diverse?” asked Mireku-North, an attorney who practices criminal defense and family law, among others. “We have to be very, very, very careful about the bills that we are putting forth that deal with diversity.”
While Maryland appellate judges stand every 10 years in retention elections, circuit judges stand every 15 years in contested elections.
Other supporters of contested circuit court races include prominent Baltimore attorney William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr., who attended the Black Caucus meeting. Besides giving voters a voice in the selection of judges, Murphy and others say contested elections increase diversity on the bench for candidates who either aren’t part of judicial network, or don’t make the cut through the judicial nominating commission process that vets candidates and forwards names to the governor for appointment.
Murphy served on a judicial work group, appointed by the Maryland Judicial Conference, that studied the issue of contested circuit elections for the last two years.
The group released a report last year which concluded that contested elections present ethical concerns and pose a risk to judges’ safety in the current political atmosphere.
One of the recommendations in the work group’s report called for more transparency for the judicial nominating commissions that vet judicial candidates and forward names to the governor for appointment.
The report also recommended that the commissions seek input from the public and specialty bar associations, like those established around race, gender, legal specialty and sexual orientation.
As of April 2024, about 31% of the state’s 169 circuit judges were Black and 51% were women, according to the report.
Murphy said in a text message Wednesday night even opponents agreed that contested elections helped to increase the diversity of the circuit court bench.
“But they argued Marylanders no longer need the protections of elections,” he said. “We are gratified that, once again, this illogical argument was soundly rejected.”
The report was mentioned during bill hearings on the same day in the House and Senate.
The report noted that 76 bills to change circuit court elections had been introduced, and failed, since the 1980s. Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Dumais, a former state delegate of nearly two decades who served as co-chair of the judicial work group, said in an interview Tuesday she was not surprised the bill appears to have failed again this year.
“We do feel the response has been very positive. We are going to continue to work with members of the legislature and continue to have conversations directly during the interim,” Dumais said. “Our goal is to find what is the best way to make sure we have qualified, independent members of the bench that have the right temperament and have integrity to really apply the law and be good judges.”
Del. Nicole Williams (D-Prince George’s) said in an interview Wednesday she “understands” the view of those on both sides of the issue.
Williams said one way the bill could be improved in the future is making sure nominating commissions are more diverse throughout the state, especially in places like Carroll County where Circuit County Judge Maria L. Oesterreicher won in a contested election in 2018 to become the first woman in that court. She remains the only woman in that jurisdiction’s circuit court.
“I think if we can focus on that piece so we can get the diversity that we want,” she said. “I think we might want to focus there before we revisit this.”