|
Columbus
Dispatch...
State
Issue 1
Voters should reject measure to allow
older judges to run
Editorial
October
17, 2011
Voters
should vote no on State Issue
1, a constitutional amendment to raise the age limit for judges. This
change
would be unnecessary and risky.
Issue
1 would increase the maximum age
for assuming elected or appointed judicial office to 75, from the
current 70.
This means judges could serve out their six-year terms into their 80s.
Ohio’s
current judicial age limit has
served the state well, and Ohio prosecutors credit it for improving
judicial
quality in the state.
“We
don’t see any compelling reason to
change it now — absent some evidence of greatly improved mental acuity
of 75-
and 80-year-olds,” said John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio
Prosecuting
Attorneys Association.
Essentially,
Issue 1 would give
age-limited incumbents — currently 62 of Ohio’s 726 judges — a chance
at an
extra term.
Proponents
argue that people are
living longer and remaining vital longer. They note that the life
expectancy of
Americans has increased nearly seven years since Ohio set its age limit
for
judges four decades ago.
But
75 is not the new 70; though
bodies are lasting longer, intellects might not.
State
Rep. Dennis Murray, a Sandusky
Democrat and lawyer, voted against extending the age limit, saying he’d
seen
too many instances in which trial judges had stayed “way past the time
they
should have hung up their spurs” and there was no effective system to
tell them
to retire.
That’s
a point.
Those
who have the most contact with a
judge are attorneys, who understandably are disinclined to complain and
face a
displeased judge during the prolonged and unpleasant removal process.
Further,
judges are among the
least-visible elected officials. They campaign only every six years and
are
restricted by judicial canons as to what they can say. They are
surrounded by
court employees, whose interest in keeping their jobs might tempt them
to cover
for a boss whose faculties are in decline. The existing system gives
Ohioans
the best of both worlds. Older judges who remain vigorous and sharp may
be
appointed to serve by special assignment. This provides a kind way of
easing
out the incapacitated, while permitting courts to tap those still
capable of
imparting their experience.
Ohio
Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor,
who favors Issue 1, announced in January that she would remove the
court’s own
“arbitrary” age limit of 80 when making about 2,500 visiting judge
appointments
a year; she described the system as “a way we salvage our talent.”
But
this argues for retaining a
mandatory retirement age: Older judges already can continue to serve,
subject
to review by the chief justice
And
while O’Connor notes that the
judiciary is the only elected office in the state with an age
restriction — she
sees it as age discrimination — it is also the only elected office with
the
ability to take away someone’s freedom and property. The potential for
irrevocable harm by a dysfunctional judge is great.
Issue
1 also places before voters two
other court-related proposals: to eliminate the General Assembly’s
authority to
establish courts of conciliation, and to eliminate the governor’s
authority to
appoint members to a Supreme Court Commission. These issues ought to be
addressed apart from the judicial-retirement age.
Reps.
Tracy Heard, D-Columbus, and
Mark Okey, D-Carrollton, writing in opposition to Issue 1, said
extending the
age limit would burden courts with some judges whose best years are
behind them.
“The
age limit embodied in our state’s
constitution prevents our bench from being held for decades by an
entrenched
judiciary,” they write. “Our current system works. Issue 1 attempts to
fix
something that is not broken, and it should be rejected by Ohio’s
voters.”
Read
this and other articles at the
Columbus Dispatch
|
