Whitespace is like air: it is necessary for design to breathe
We elect all judges in Ohio. The Ohio Constitution requires this. Over the years, different judicial leaders have expressed dissatisfaction with electing judges. The late Chief Justice Tom Moyer long favored merit selection, at least for appellate judges and justices of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Our current Chief Justice, Maureen O’Connor, has had an…
Ever since the 2002 case of Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down, on First Amendment Grounds, the “announce clause” of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibited judges and judicial candidates from announcing their views on disputed legal or political issues, judicial elections have…
On March 11, 2015, in Ohio State Bar Assn. v. Salerno, 2015-Ohio-791, the Supreme Court of Ohio publicly reprimanded Franklin County Municipal Court Judge Amy Salerno for telling jurors in open court in a criminal case they had reached the wrong verdict when they found the defendant not guilty of assault and disorderly conduct. …
Now retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote this in her separate concurrence in the landmark case of Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the 2002 decision that changed the landscape in judicial elections by giving judges and judicial candidates more free speech (and some say unwisely so):
“ I am concerned…
An interview with Ohio’s Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and AP reporter Andrew Welch-Huggins, which ran in a number of Ohio newspapers last week, carried the headline “Ohio Chief Justice: Time to Rethink Judicial Elections.” The story quotes O’Connor as saying that because nearly 70% of the judicial races (69% in this election cycle) are uncontested,…
In June of 2013, Ohio’s Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline issued Opinion 2013-3, which dramatically limited the use of the title “judge” for former judges. I wrote about that here.
The exact question presented to the Board at the time was whether it was appropriate for former judges to use judicial titles…
On April 22, 2014, the Supreme Court of Ohio handed down a merit decision in State v. Davis, Slip Opinion No. 2014-Ohio-1615, affirming the conviction and death sentence of a man convicted of shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend in 1983. What’s interesting in the case is that the opinion was written by Justice…
I recently did a post analyzing the oral argument in the case of City of Cleveland v. Erin McCardle and Leatrice Tolls, 13-0096, in which two Occupy protestors are challenging the constitutionality of a Cleveland Ordinance which establishes a 10:00 p.m. curfew in the Public Square.
Not being from Cleveland, after hearing the lawyer…
As I’m sure my readers already know, Ohio elects all of its judges—from Municipal Court to the Ohio Supreme Court. Why? Our state constitution has required this since 1851. And all judicial terms are six years. Presently, the only requirement to become a judge is to have practiced law in Ohio for six years, and…
Update: The Supreme Court of Ohio effectively overruled this opinion in new amendments to Rule 8.2 of the Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct. Read about that here.
I haven’t been a judge in a long time, yet many people still call me Judge Bettman. I appreciate the courtesy, but I don’t think of myself that…
