A third of the Middle District of Pennsylvania's active court lies vacant due to the slow-moving process of judicial nominations. These vacancies significantly overburden the district, forcing citizens into long, drawn-out litigation. Rebecca Love Kourlis, Executive Director of IAALS, was interviewed about the situation.

The Diane Rehm Show discusses how judicial elections and appointment processes impact fairness in state courts. Some critics argue elections create political biases which weaken judicial impartiality. Others argue elections provide a way for the people to hold judges accountable and that the key to keeping courts fair and impartial is by educating the public.

At its fall convention, the state Democratic Party nominated three women to run for supreme court seats in November. Two of the three candidates are challenging incumbent justices, while the third is running for an open seat.

The Superior Court of Maricopa County, Arizona has prepared a short video that describes its process for selecting, evaluating, and retaining judges. Appellate courts and trial courts in the three largest counties use the O'Connor Judicial Selection Plan, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is featured in the video.

On August 30th, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania introduced a new Pilot Program designed to expedite civil cases filed in that district. Modeled loosely on the Northern District of California's program, the Pennsylvania District's Pilot Program is aimed at relatively simple civil cases, which do not require lengthy and expensive pretrial and trial proceedings.

Thirty-three percent of supreme, appellate, and superior court judges are women—an increase of eight percent since 2002. This figure comes close to matching the percentage of Connecticut Bar Association members who are women—34 percent.

A group of retired supreme court judges took the lead in the campaign opposing Amendment 3, a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the governor to name an additional member of the commission that nominates potential judges and increase the number of nominees from three to four.

The state Republican Party chair called for voters to remove one of four supreme court justices standing for retention in November. Justice David Wiggins participated in the 2009 unanimous ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in the state, and three of his colleagues lost their bids for retention in 2010.

With Justice Patricio Serna’s retirement at the end of August, the state political parties are meeting to nominate candidates to run for the seat in November. Ordinarily, nominees would be chosen in partisan primary elections, but the vacancy is occurring after the June primaries.

The Missouri Bar’s judicial-review committee has released evaluations of the 51 judges standing for retention in November, recommending against the retention of Judge Dale W. Hood. Judge Hood also received a “not be retained” recommendation in 2008 but was retained by 54 percent of the vote.

Some senators are pushing to abolish the governor’s council, one of the chief responsibilities of which is to confirm judicial appointments. The council has come under fire recently for “unorthodox questioning” of judicial nominees and “inflammatory behavior” of some members.

With two vacancies on the supreme court, Chief Justice Rabner is assigning two intermediate appellate court judges to the supreme court as of October 1. The court has been operating with six members since Justice Long retired in March, and a lower court judge who has been serving temporarily reaches mandatory retirement age next month.