One of the biggest complaints I have heard from the general public is the inability to adequately evaluate the judicial candidates when election time rolls around. A couple years ago, the various agencies that do conduct candidate evaluations united their voices in an effort to reach the public better.
The Judicial Candidates Rating Coalition is comprised of The Cleveland Bar Association, The Cuyahoga County Bar Association, The Cuyahoga Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, The Norman S. Minor Bar Association and The Ohio Women’s Bar Association. These associations jointly publish their evaluations in an effort to educate the public so that informed elections can occur.
Check it out at: www.judge4yourself.com
To what extent will Sunday’s New York Times and affiliated newspaper stories have an impact on the Ohio Supreme Court election? The papers’ statistics track the course that I had predicted in the symposium on the Court’s 200th anniversary, see “Writing Checks or Righting Wrongs”, 51 Cleve.St.L.Rev. 643 (2004). I speculate on my blog that it will be a while before we know how the voters respond to the impactful statistics compiled and now publicized by the journalists, see blog entry at oreillyforjudge.org. How do others on the tort journal list expect this to impact on the races?
Prof. Jim O’Reilly