News & Updates

An effort to impose seven-year term limits on judges failed to pass the house and is dead for this legislative session. New Hampshire is one of three states where judges serve for life, or to a mandatory retirement age of 70.

Of the races on the ballot in the May Democratic primary elections, the two supreme court races are the most expensive so far, with the six candidates having spent $1.4 million.

The governor asked a judicial nominating commission to submit the name of more than one candidate for a district court judgeship for which only four attorneys applied. All four applicants—two Republicans and two Democrats—are also running for the seat in November. The commission responded by soliciting additional applicants but did not promise to nominate more candidates.

Despite an earlier agreement to move forward with Senate confirmation of judicial nominees, Senator Al Franken and others report that the process remains acrimonious. Nearly one in 10 seats on the federal bench are currently empty.

A judicial selection task force made seven recommendations and offered draft legislation to improve the process for selecting supreme court justices. Recommendations including nominating candidates in open primaries rather than through party conventions, full disclosure of campaign spending, and the use of a vacancy nominating commission to fill judicial vacancies between elections.

The senate approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the governor to appoint appellate judges with legislative confirmation. The proposal would give the general assembly sixty days to act on a nomination or it would automatically be confirmed. The house later approved the same measure. If approved by a two-thirds vote of the general assembly in 2013, the proposal will go before the voters in 2014.

The senate voted unanimously to replace the existing judicial disciplinary body—the court on the judiciary—with a new entity known as the board of judicial conduct. The state bar and the supreme court would no longer have a role in selecting members of the disciplinary body, and greater transparency in its work would be required.

Numbers may prevent a disciplinary complaint against Justice David Prosser from going any further. Prosser formally requested that two justices recuse themselves from consideration of the complaint against him, and he asked personally that two other justices recuse themselves, on the grounds that these justices were witnesses to the incident that gave rise to the complaint.

A Republican legislator called for an investigation into whether three supreme court justices violated state election law in using court employees to help file their retention candidacy paperwork. The justices learned on the day of the deadline that their financial disclosure forms were incomplete and called a court recess to finalize their submissions.

The three supreme court justices standing for retention in November share major campaign contributors with Fair Districts Now, an organization that supported redistricting amendments considered by the court in February.

Republican Allen Loughry, who is running for the supreme court of appeals, is the only one of eight candidates to seek public campaign financing through the state’s pilot program. The public financing program provides $50,000 to uncontested primary candidates, minus what they raised to qualify, and $350,000 for the general election.

A district court judge may have violated the state’s code of judicial conduct by writing a letter soliciting campaign contributions for a fellow judge who is running for a state supreme court seat. If a complaint is filed and found to have merit, the judge could be subject to disciplinary action ranging from admonishment to removal from the bench.

The supreme court adopted new rules that bar individual judges from taking budget requests and suggestions for revisions to the law directly to legislators without first getting appropriate approval. These rules are in response to judges’ role in lobbying lawmakers for a $50 million courthouse that has been labeled “Taj Majal.”

A state senator criticized Governor Christie for not taking action on longstanding superior court vacancies. A shortage of judges recently led to a four-month suspension of civil trials in the state’s busiest courthouse. Christie responded that he will address those vacancies after the senate has voted on pending nominations.

By a 5-4 vote, the state judicial nominating commission voted to bar its members from contributing to or actively participating in any judicial race in the state, including the retention elections of three supreme court justices. Those who voted in favor of the policy want to avoid the appearance of impropriety, while those who voted against it believe that public disclosure of support for a candidate would be sufficient.

All eight candidates for the state’s appellate courts qualified for public financing, with supreme court candidates receiving $240,100 each and court of appeals candidates receiving $164,400. At least two outside groups are raising and spending funds in support of the Republican supreme court candidate.

The house judiciary committee rejected by a 7-7 vote a proposal calling for all of the state’s judges to be chosen in popular elections. A majority vote was needed for the bill to advance to the full legislature. The measure also failed to get a majority vote in the senate finance committee.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan recently joined Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the honorary chair of our O'Connor Advisory Committee, at the Newseum to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Justice O'Connor's first term on the Court.

The state legislature approved a new judicial discipline system, calling for replacing the existing disciplinary body—the court on the judiciary—with an entity known as the board of judicial conduct. The ten judge members will be appointed by judicial organizations, rather than by the state bar and the supreme court, and the six non-judge members will be chosen by the governor and the speakers of the house and senate.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a lower federal court decision that rejected a challenge to the role of lawyers on the state’s judicial nominating commissions. The lawsuit alleged that it is unconstitutional for the lawyer members to play a part in selecting judges because they are chosen by the state bar association, rather than by voters or an elected official.