By Robert
Kittle Published: January 8, 2016, 6:35 pm
Justice Costa Pleicones was sworn-in Thursday as the new
Chief Justice of the SC Supreme Court. He was elected by state lawmakers.
COLUMBIA, SC — A bill pre-filed in the SC House would
let the public elect state judges. Now, South Carolina is one of only two
states, along with Virginia, where state lawmakers elect judges. Most states,
27 of them, have their governors appoint judges, either with the consent of the
state Senate or from a list of approved candidates cleared by a nominating
commission. The other 21 states, including North Carolina and Georgia, have
public election of judges.
Rep. Chris Corley, R-Graniteville, pre-filed the bill to
change how things are done now. “I feel like the system’s fundamentally
corrupt,” he says. “Number one, it’s corrupt when you have attorney-legislators
who walk in the courtroom and they’ve elected that judge. Number two, it’s
corrupt when it’s used basically as a barter system within the legislature.” He
says lawmakers will agree to vote for a particular candidate in exchange for
another lawmaker’s support of his favored candidate in another race, or in
exchange for support on a bill or budget item.
But Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, the House Minority
Leader, who’s also a lawyer, says, “It’s one of the worst ideas I’ve ever
heard. If you look around the country at judicial corruption, you’ll notice
that a lot of that has to do with judges are out there begging for money to run
for office, looking for lawyers and law firms that can fund their campaigns and
then turn around and doing them special favors.”
Rep. Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, House Majority Leader
and a lawyer, says judges need to remain impartial. “As a candidate for a
judgeship, you have to go out and raise money and the only people to raise
money from in those cases are lawyers, which creates lawyers supporting the
judges who they then appear in front of, which is a very dangerous place to
be.”
But Rep. Corley says, “I would disagree that lawyers and law
firms are going to be the only place you’re going to get money. You’re going to
be able to get money from businesses. You’re going to be able to get money from
political activists.”
When a person is running for judge in those other states, they are not allowed to handel or touch any of the funds, said Deanna.