The race for the three open seats on the seven-member Pennsylvania Supreme Court is expected to be intense this year, and there is no doubt it is starting earlier than normal.
All six Democratic Supreme Court candidates will be in Pittsburgh at 2 p.m. Sunday for a forum at Chatham University. In total there are 18 announced candidates.
But little is known and will be known about them.
University of Pittsburgh Law Professor John Burkoff says voters are put in a very difficult position every two years. Sometimes candidates running haven’t been a judge, therefore there is no written record to evaluate.
“It’s almost impossible for an ordinary citizen to figure out who exactly he or she is voting for," he said. "They don’t follow all of the decisions. They don’t understand or want to understand the legal doctrine behind why a case is decided a particular way.”
When a sitting judge in Pennsylvania dies, retires or resigns, the governor along with the General Assembly appoints a judge to the vacancy, but when that appointment ends, they must run for re-election as well.
“There are a lot of people, and I’m certainly one of them, who think it would be a lot better if we appointed our appellate judges and didn’t essentially force them to act like political candidates when they are running for judicial office,” Burkoff said.
He said appointing a judge whose role is to be non-partisan and objective in a partisan race is inappropriate.
“We elect our appellate judges in Pennsylvania on partisan ballots and then we tell them as soon as you are elected, you’re not a partisan anymore. And that may be difficult for some of these judges to do and it certainly influences the opinion of the citizens of Pennsylvania,” he said.
Several individuals and groups including governors, legislators and bar associations have pushed for judicial appointment rather than election of appellate judges.
“There is a sense that people don’t want to take the decision about who’s going to be judge out of the hands of the people. The problem is that the people don’t know very much about the candidates who are running for office,” Burkoff said.