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Judicial Candidates Go All Out To Court Howard County Voters

The race is for two judicial posts, but the campaign in Howard County has been anything but judicious. There have been attack ads on cable television. Targeted direct mail and hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions. Sign-waving, door-to-door politicking, with the incumbents slammed as "judges on training wheels."

Contrary to the way elections for Circuit Court usually play out -- as uncontested, low-profile snoozers -- this is one of the more vicious elections Howard residents have seen. It's also somewhat bizarre, because three of the four candidates are sitting judges and, under state ethics rules, they're not allowed to talk about their philosophy on issues that might come before them.

According to many people and the Maryland State Bar Association, the race illustrates why voters are not in the best position to decide who will sit in judgment on the bench. A state panel on the future of Maryland's courts recently cited Howard's campaign as evidence when it proposed eliminating contested judicial elections.

Brad Coker, a national pollster based in Howard County, doesn't know what to make of the race. "I really would not know what to compare it to," he said. "There's all these little ground rules and side rules that judges can't say this and judges can't say that. Three of the four candidates essentially have their hands tied behind their back.

"It's rooted in what I would call legal community politics," Coker said. "Most people don't understand the judicial selection process."

Such criticism is not particular to Maryland, of course. Speaking broadly during a recent appearance before the American Bar Association, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens called judicial elections the equivalent of "allowing football fans to elect the referees." Others have questioned whether judges who solicit campaign contributions from lawyers can be objective when the same lawyers appear in their courtrooms.

In Washington state and Texas, critics point out, challengers have beaten respected judges when they had few assets other than a name that sounded familiar to voters.

But some minority groups take a different position, saying judicial elections are one of the few ways group members can gain access to the bench. And Elena Sassower, coordinator of the Center for Judicial Accountability in New York, notes that judicial appointments can be as "political and corrupted" as elections.

"You need safeguards," she said.

In the Howard races, both incum bent judges are women, and one is the first African American to sit on the court. Diane O. Leasure, who had been a civil lawyer in Prince George's County, and Donna Hill Staton, who had practiced in Baltimore, were appointed last year by Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D), who said he was fulfilling his campaign pledge to diversify the Maryland judiciary. In Maryland, judges are screened by a judicial nominating commission and are appointed by the governor, and then they run for 15-year terms.

In making the appointments, Glendening passed over District Judge Lenore R. Gelfman and Columbia lawyer Jonathan Scott Smith. The pair launched an unusual counterattack, a ferocious campaign touching on issues ranging from legal experience to the death penalty. Some residents and legal observers believe the campaign has taken on racial overtones, and supporters of Leasure and Staton plan to discuss the matter at a news conference this afternoon.

Gelfman and Smith attacked their opponents as less qualified, saying their appointments were based more on political connections. The challengers released their judicial applications and demanded that Leasure and Staton do the same. The two refused but said they had been through a "rigorous" screening process.

In their defense, Leasure and Staton noted that the challengers were criticizing the very process from which they had hoped to benefit and politicizing the judiciary in a way that could tarnish the courts' reputation for years.

More recently, as the only candidate free to discuss his positions, Smith has been campaigning against crime, promising to get tough and apply the death penalty. Although Howard's per capita crime rate has declined by 25 percent in the last 20 years, some voters perceive that crime is on the rise, and Smith's comments are resonating with them.

But likely not with those such as Stevens. In his recent speech, he targeted such pledges as "evidence of bias that should disqualify a candidate from sitting in criminal cases."

Others disagree. Smith and representatives from anti-crime and victims rights groups say discussion of crime and other issues is appropriate for a judicial candidate. Ted Dees, a spokesman for the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, said voters should know whether judges are reluctant to apply the death penalty.

"People have a right to know," he said. "Judges should not be legislating from the bench."

Sassower, of the New York judicial center, takes a similar view. She faults Maryland's system for forbidding judges from stating their positions on issues, as well as for not forcing candidates to release their judicial applications.

"We take the view that judges are public officials, and we should know their qualifications," she said. "These judges are sitting for very long terms. They are going to make decisions that may be life-and-death decisions, as well as impact society generally."