Keypoints
JUDICIAL SELECTION
¬ Since 1880, the Connecticut Constitution has provided that all judges of the superior, appellate, and supreme courts are appointed by the General Assembly upon nomination by the governor. Each judge is appointed for an eight-year term and must be renominated and reappointed for additional terms or movement to a higher court.
¬ Unlike Connecticut, 38 states use popular elections in some way for judicial selection purposes.
¬ In 1986, the Judicial Selection Commission was established by constitutional amendment to recommend both new candidates and incumbent judges for nomination by the governor. The governor can only nominate persons from the commission lists.
¬ The job of a judge is to apply the law established by the legislature, as well as common law, to individual cases in dispute, ranging from whether someone is guilty of a crime or breached a contract.
¬ The idea of judicial independence is that a judge should not be influenced by anything other than legal principles, including public opinion, in making decisions.
¬ There are seven Supreme Court justices, seven appellate Court judges, and 159 Superior Court judgeships. In any given year, several judges can be up for reappointment and vacancies can occur.
¬ The Judicial Selection Commission has two distinct tasks - screen new candidates for possible nomination for judgeships and evaluate incumbent judges for reappointment to the same court. Both the commission's authorizing statute and accompanying regulations reflect the two different functions of the commission, with different processes and criteria.
¬ There are no statutory or regulatory criteria for either the governor or the legislature to use in their segments of the judicial selection process.
¬ The Judicial Selection Commission recommends for nomination about half of all the new applicants for judgeships.
¬ The Judicial Selection Commission has only failed to recommend for nomination one incumbent judge seeking reappointment to the same court.
¬ Since 1987, the legislature has not denied reappointment to an incumbent judge, nor has it turned down the nomination of a person to be a judge for the first time. In that time period, three judges nominated for reappointment have withdrawn their names for legislative consideration at three different stages of the legislative process.