Picking judges: the people or the lawyers?

It’s a very old argument, indeed, whether judges should be elected or appointed. And if appointed, then by whom, and how is that whom to be chosen? Who, in other words, will watch the watchers? Often the answer has been: the people, in free elections. Novelist-lawyer John Grisham, whose mansion rises above the hills west of Oxford, Mississippi, is campaigning for appointment, even in the pages of his latest legal novel, available in fine airports worldwide. The WSJ disagrees, enumerating the inherent problems, including that trial lawyers often wind up doing the choosing of their cronies for judges. Better, they say, to let the people do it, as the framers preferred. In Canada, for instance, where judges are appointed, by some measures two-thirds of the citizenry would prefer elections. Which brings to mind something I saw yesterday at Mr. B.’s little league practice: one team whose sponsor on the back of their team shirts was Guy Herman, a local probate judge, who runs for election as a Dem. If a judge has to advertise, I can’t think of a better way to do it.