Greene County voters approve Nonpartisan Court Plan

Greene County voters have decided to change the way the county's circuit court chooses its judges - and now the real work begins.

In the Nov. 4 election, 51.8 percent of Greene County voters approved Question 1, which makes the 31st Judicial Circuit - which covers Greene County - one of six to use the state's system of judge selection, dubbed the Nonpartisan Court Plan.

Under the system, also called the Missouri Plan, a five-member panel nominates three candidates for any vacant judge's seat, and the governor selects one of the nominees. The panel comprises the chief justice of the Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District, two attorneys living in Greene County who are elected by their peers and two non-attorney members appointed by the governor.

Once judges are appointed, they would have to be reapproved by voters within one year.

Chip Sheppard, an attorney with Carnahan, Evans, Cantwell & Brown PC and co-chairman of Greene Countians for Fair & Impartial Judges, which supported Question 1, said the system will give voters more say in the selection process.

"Voters don't get to vote on their judges very often right now, and they don't have any information about the judges when they do vote, so it's just a dart thrown into a dark room," Sheppard said.

The listed phone number for Better Courts for Missouri, the main group opposing the Nonpartisan Court Plan in its current form, had been disconnected at press time.

More work to do

Now that the issue has passed, the first step is creating the selection committee. The two non-attorney members will be appointed by the governor's office, though it's still unclear whether that responsibility will fall to current Gov. Matt Blunt or Gov.-elect Jay Nixon, now the state's attorney general, who takes office in January.

Much of the work, however, falls to Circuit Clerk Steve Helms. Helms' office has several responsibilities, including collecting names of attorneys interested in running for the two open commission spots and distributing ballots to all attorneys in the county to vote on who should fill those slots.

Helms said he didn't find out until after the election that his office would be responsible for the work.

"The (Missouri) Supreme Court called down here and said, 'Do you know (Judicial Commission) Rule 10?' I said, 'No, but I'll learn it,'" Helms said.

"We're understaffed here, so any time you add more work on will take a little more time. But I don't think it will be overly burdensome," he added.

Rule 10 spells out the process by which the commission is selected, as well as the process the commission will use to select judicial nominees.

Lawyers interested in serving on the selection committee must collect 10 signatures from fellow members of The Missouri Bar to get their names on a ballot that will be sent from Helms' office to Greene County attorneys who are in good standing with The Missouri Bar.

"I've spoken to a couple of other counties that have (the Nonpartisan Court Plan), and they said they'd send down some of their ballot paperwork so we can see what they've done in the past," Helms said. "It should be a pretty smooth process. It's just a matter of the (Missouri) Supreme Court sending me the list of eligible members that can vote. Then we'll get the ballots printed up."

Helms noted that several attorneys have already expressed their interest in running for the commission.

One of those is Rodney Loomer, shareholder with Turner, Reid, Duncan, Loomer & Patton PC. Loomer, a strong proponent of the Missouri Plan in Greene County, said he wants to serve in an effort to take some of the politics out of the judicial selection process.

"I know that I would be trying to find the very best judges, whether they're Republican, Democrat or independent," he said, noting that he has nothing against the current circuit judges but feels their political views were part of the reason they were appointed.

"I just want the best people to take care of our legal business," Loomer added.

Hurry up and wait

The Missouri Supreme Court ultimately sets the date for the election of attorneys to the commission; Helms said that while the official date has not yet been announced, it will probably be in February.

Getting the commission in place could be an even bigger deal in the near future. While the commission will lay dormant until a vacancy appears on the bench, Sheppard said there's a push at the state level to add judges to the 31st Circuit Court to handle overwhelming case loads.

"There's hope that the legislature will give us two more judges - we need seven, but if we can just get two, that's a step in the right direction," Sheppard said. "If we get two new judges, the commission would then go to work."

A bill that would have added one judge to the local circuit didn't make it out of committee in the 2008 General Assembly session, but similar legislation is expected to be introduced in 2009.