Assignment 1: The State Judicial Selection Process

The State Judicial Selection Process
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
The State Judicial Selection Process
Worldwide, Judiciary is a critical body in every country, tasked in the interpretation, and administration of justice under the law. Over the past, judicial selection has increasingly become politicized (Gerhardt, 2019). A reflection in the past years saw special interests from significant stakeholders in the nominations of judges as an opportunity to advance individual benefit rather than settle for an impartial, fair and independent system that upholds justice to all. For most judicial systems, for an individual to be liable for the position of a judge, the person must possess high levels of Integrity, intelligence and must meet the legal requirements of a given land; however, some systems do not accurately observe these crucial factors. Commonly, the qualification standards and selection process vary from one state to another depending on the laws of a specific nation. Judges are required to have practical experience, observe professional and moral ethics to suspend their duties diligently. Therefore, this paper seeks to compare and contrast the judicial selection of the state of California and Texas.
The approaches of judicial selection vary substantially in the 50 states of the United States, with each state having its unique set of guidelines governing how they fill their state and local Judiciary’s personnel. These techniques spans from; partisan elections, non-partisan election, legislative elections, gubernatorial appointment, and assisted appointment. In the partisan elections, judges are adopted by people through voting in a secret ballot where candidates are matched with party affiliation. Non-partisan elections involve a process where people and candidates choose judges without necessarily being matched to any political affiliation. In the legislative elections, judges are designated by the state legislature and constitutional authorities. While gubernatorial appointment is a process where judges are appointed by the governor with an agreement through a statutory body such as Senate. Additionally, assisted appointment involves a process where a nominating commission reviews the experiences of judicial applicants and submits a list of names to the governor who appoints judges from the list. The retention elections encompasses a periodic assessment of an incumbent by the voters in retaining the office (Reilly & Walker 2010).
Texas court system is organized into two courts of last resort namely; the Supreme Court which determines civil matters and the court of criminal appeals. The court of appeal is the state transitional appellate court whereas the district court is the trial court of general authority. Court with limited jurisdiction includes county, probate, municipal, and the justice of the peace courts. Initially, before Texas was inaugurated as a state, judges were chosen by the governor with senate consent, but since the1876, judges at all levels of courts have been elected by the people in a partisan election.
In Texas, the judges are elected and reelected through a partisan election, where voters have the right and option of casting a straight ticket vote. Commonly, t...