The Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan is not a perfect system but it is the best one by far, according to a retired judge.
“No one complains about the Missouri court system being crooked or subject to bad outside pressures,” said Dan Scott, a former Southern District Missouri Court of Appeals judge.
“Like any system where you select judges, some are stronger than others but no one has shown a better way to pick judges than the way that we're picking them, which is why states all around the country have accepted this plan after Missouri did it.”
The judge emeritus made the comments in response to Sen. Dan Hegeman's (R-Cosby) proposal to overhaul the Nonpartisan Court Plan in a way that would eliminate lawyers from commissions.
“I am totally afraid that if they ever change it, our Missouri court system may go downhill the way that some of our neighbor systems have done,” Scott told the St. Louis Record.
“You can't go three or four years without hearing about how judges in other states are involved in a scandal. You never hear judges selected on the Missouri plan being in a scandal. It just doesn't happen.”
The Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan, a merit-based, non-partisan process for selecting judges, was adopted by ballot initiative in the 1940s. Commissions are responsible for selecting nominees for vacancies on the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, and state circuit courts.
“There have been repeated attempts by certain legislators to change it again and again but the people have always beaten it back,” Scott said.
The proposal, if approved by voters, would make way for the governor to select members of commissions, which would allegedly lower the sway of attorneys in who is appointed to be a judge, according to media reports.
“We currently have a setup where we have three lawyers and three non-lawyers on the Appellate Judicial Commission,” Scott said. “It's never been all lawyers. Who really knows better what persons might be a good judge or what judges might be good to promote to a higher level than lawyers? We need to have people who are knowledgeable about the qualifications and the abilities of the people who are under consideration and the people who have that knowledge by and large are lawyers. They need to be part of the process.”
Scott practiced in the Missouri judicial system for 25 years before serving as a judge for 15 years. He retired on Dec. 31, 2020.
“The alternative is to let the governor pick somebody and then put them through Senate-like hearings,” Scott added. ‘We see that happen at the federal level whenever they appoint somebody to the Supreme Court. Do you want that to happen in Missouri? Do you want those kinds of committee hearings, innuendos, and baloney to happen? No, you don't want that to happen.”