​KRISTEN JOHANSON 
MAY 20, 2019 - 6:18 PM

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The focus of this year's primary in Pennsylvania is at the local level, but there are state and county-wide judgeships to be decided as well, and one nonpartisan group argues judicial candidates are the most important picks you'll make on a ballot.
Judges may have a greater impact on your life or the community as a whole than the executive or legislative branch, says Maida Milone, president and CEO of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts.

"If you are in family court and it’s a question about whether or not your parental rights will be terminated, it’s a judge that's going to make that decision. If you are in a dispute with your landlord and it's a question of whether or not you will be evicted, it’s a judge who is going to be making that decision," Milone said. 

There are two open seats on Pennsylvania’s Superior Court with a few candidates from both parties running as well as several open bench positions in the Court of Common Pleas across all five counties. 
"Our hope is that most people know their local judge candidates better than they would know statewide candidates and therefore might be able to cast a thoughtful and reasonable decision about who should be a judge," Milone added. 

For a complete list of all judicial candidates, visit Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts' website or the Committee of 70 Voter Guide. 
Below are the websites for Philadelphia, Delaware, Montgomery, Chester and Bucks counties' board of elections. 
​

• For Philadelphia County, click here. 
• For Delaware County, click here. 
• For Montgomery County, click here. 
• For Chester County, click here. 
• For Bucks County, click here. 

​Pennsylvania is teetering on the brink of losing its independent appellate judiciary. Legislation that would ask voters to agree to balkanize how our justices and judges are selected for Pennsylvania’s three statewide appellate courts is advancing though the General Assembly. Currently, jurists who sit on our appellate courts are elected on a statewide basis. House Bill 196, sponsored by Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, wants to divide the state into a myriad of districts based on the number of justices and judges sitting in each appellate court — seven for the Supreme Court, 15 for Superior Court and nine for Commonwealth Court — and to hold judicial elections within those districts. This is an attempt to effect a transformation of the third branch of our government into a legislature of sorts with jurists being expected to represent the views of their districts, views Mr. Diamond and the bill’s supporters want to ensure mirror theirs more often.

Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts strongly opposes H.B. 196. We have long believed that partisan elections are damaging to the integrity of the judiciary and the public’s confidence in the work of our courts. In Pennsylvania, even the most qualified judicial candidates for statewide appellate judgeships are dependent on campaign contributions from individuals and special interest groups with business before the courts. This dependency creates an appearance of impropriety that ultimately undermines public confidence in Pennsylvania’s courts and potentially threatens judicial independence.

This bill would render judicial elections even more fraught than they already are. Significantly reducing the pool of voters for each judicial candidate will only serve to heighten judges’ feelings and the perception of the public at large that those judges’ decisions represent the interests only of those who voted for them and/​or funded their campaigns. Moreover, it will inhibit the independent mindset that is required to adjudicate legal issues of statewide importance.

Placing judicial candidates in the same position as legislators — presenting their positions on issues and securing funding from people who support those issues — is not only unproductive, it contravenes the standards we expect them to meet while serving us as judges. Forcing them to do that in smaller and smaller districts upends the role of the courts and will leave us with no independent branch of government to balance the power of the legislature and executive.
​
MAIDA MILONE
President & CEO
Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts
Philadelphia, Pa

by Andrew Seidman, Updated: May 8, 2019

State judicial candidates in Pennsylvania are limited in what they can say about cases or issues that might make their way to the courtroom, so it can be difficult for voters to make sense of the field ahead of the May 21 primary elections.

But at a forum hosted by the advocacy group Pennsylvania for Modern Courts at the Parkway Central Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia Tuesday evening, five of the six candidates for Superior Court offered insight into their thinking as judges and aspiring jurists for the statewide appellate court.

There are two open seats on the court, which handles appeals of civil and criminal cases, as well as those in cases involving family and children.
Running in the Republican primary are Cumberland County Judge Christylee Peck, Chester County Deputy District Attorney Megan King, and Rebecca Warren, a lawyer and former Montour County district attorney. Running for the Democratic nomination are Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Daniel McCaffery as well as lawyers Beth Tarasi and Amanda Green-Hawkins from Allegheny County. Green-Hawkins, a lawyer who works for the United Steelworkers union, didn’t appear at the event.

Here are three things to know about the candidates.

Legal heroes
You might not have heard of the individual candidates, but moderator Karl Myers asked them a potentially revealing question: Who is your legal hero, and why?

Republicans
Rebecca Warren: the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. “I admire him because he believed in judicial restraint and he also believed in following the Constitution and the rule of law.”

Christylee Peck: Scalia, “but not for the reason probably everyone here is sitting here thinking.It is because I love that he reached across and was really good friends with Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. I like the idea that intellectually you can have completely different intellectual thoughts but you can have a discourse about it and you can be friends.” Courts should be balanced, Peck said, adding that she wanted a friendlier civic discourse.

Megan King: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Saylor. King said she clerked for Saylor and described him as her mentor. “I remember getting multiple papers back covered in red pen. ... It was about making sure that you clearly think about what you want to say, and making sure that you’re following the law as it is written, and actually having the law guide you to your decisions,” she said, rather than bending the law to a desired outcome.

Democrats

Beth Tarasi: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “She showed us as women that we can all do this.”
Daniel McCaffery: the late Edward R. Becker, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. McCaffery, who was born in Germantown and raised in Northeast Philly, recalled Becker as a “guy from the neighborhood” who would take the El to the federal courthouse at Sixth and Market Streets. “He was renowned as an intellectual giant, but more importantly he had a common touch.”

Money? What money?
Judicial candidates in Pennsylvania are prohibited from personally soliciting campaign contributions, but they are permitted to authorize fundraising committees to raise money on their behalf.

All the candidates said they were committed to transparency and disclosure in accordance with the law, but a couple suggested they weren't even sure who’s bankrolling their campaigns.

McCaffery said he told his campaign committee “exactly what I thought I would need, and I’ve left it alone since then.”

“I have not checked,” he said. “I have not asked. Nor will I ask.”

Fellow Democrat Tarasi appeared to go a step further: “I don’t even know where the donations are coming from,” she said, adding that her campaign committee keeps track.

For the record, McCaffery had about $173,000 in his campaign account as of May 6, according to reports filed with the Department of State. Labor unions account for the bulk of his haul.

Tarasi had about $58,000 as of April 1 (the latest report is due Friday). Her biggest contribution was $10,000 from Janet Anti, a Pittsburgh pastor.

They are good at the humble-brag
Myers, the moderator, asked the candidates to name their biggest strengths and weaknesses. Some said they are hard workers, others excellent leaders, and so forth. Self-criticism is much more fun, so let’s get to that.

Republicans

Warren: “I have a very low tolerance for injustice. I get very frustrated by it at times.”

Peck: “Being a judge is a heavy weight. And I really take the decisions to heart.”

King: “I burn a candle in too many places,” adding that she was a working mother of three. “Sometimes I don’t sleep a lot.”

Democrats

McCaffery: “I don’t suffer fools lightly,” explaining that he gets frustrated if attorneys come to his courtroom unprepared.

Tarasi: “I get frustrated because I want the world to be a better place. There’s so many things I can’t change. I want to so bad. But I just have to kind of live with that.”

by Andrew Seidman, Updated: May 6, 2019- 5:14 AM
​
When you head to the polls on May 21, you might know whom you plan to support for mayor and City Council. But chances are you won’t know as much about the 33 judicial candidates on the ballot in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that holds partisan elections in all judicial races, from trial judges to Supreme Court justices.

In the Democratic primary this year, two are running for Superior Court, a statewide appellate court; another two for Philadelphia Municipal Court; and 25 for Common Pleas Court. In the Republican primary, three people are running for Superior Court and one for Common Pleas.

After readers asked about the process via Curious Philly — a forum where Inquirer journalists field questions from our audience — we decided to write a guide to how these elections work and why they’re held in the first place.
The basicsCommon Pleas courts, organized into 60 judicial districts across the state, handle all major civil and criminal cases. Philadelphia Municipal Court handles minor cases.

Superior and Common Pleas court judges serve 10-year terms, after which they may run for another 10 years in office. These uncontested “retention” elections are held during the general election on a simple “yes” or “no” vote. Superior Court judges rule on appeals from the trial level in criminal and civil matters and are paid an annual salary of $199,114; Common Pleas judges earn 183,184, and Municipal judges $178,946.

How many candidates do you vote for?
There are two open seats on Superior Court, six on Common Pleas, and one on Municipal.

Do the candidates raise money?
Yes, and critics of partisan judicial elections say that’s a problem, because candidates’ campaigns are funded by trial lawyers and others who may end up in their courtroom.

Judicial candidates are prohibited from personally soliciting campaign contributions, though others may raise money on their behalf. Candidates often loan their campaigns tens of thousands of dollars.

In addition to paying the Democratic City Committee $35,000 for a shot at an endorsement, many candidates also shell out campaign funds to political consultants, who work to persuade the city’s 69 Democratic ward leaders to back their clients. The party and ward leaders distribute sample ballots to voters.

Ballot position
Perhaps more important than any of those factors is pure luck of the draw on ballot position, determined by a lottery held in Harrisburg.

Candidates whose names appear in the first column tend to do better. In 2017, for example, six of the nine winners in the Democratic primary for Common Pleas Court were in the first column. There were 27 candidates in the field.

Are the candidates qualified?
Except for minor courts, candidates must be members of the state bar to be eligible for a judgeship.

The Philadelphia Bar Association investigates candidates and rates them as “highly recommended,” “recommended,” or “not recommended.”

So far, the Bar has rated three candidates as “not recommended.” Some candidates have listed their qualifications in questionnaires for PhillyJudges.com.

Where do they stand on the issues?
It’s hard to say. Judicial candidates are allowed to express their personal opinions. But they may not “make any statement that would reasonably be expected to affect the outcome or impair the fairness of a matter pending or impending in any court,” according to the state Code of Judicial Conduct.
Some left-leaning groups have asked candidates where they stand on issues like eliminating cash bail and scaling back the use of probation and parole.

Why do we elect judges?
Pennsylvania’s partisan election of judges dates back to 1850, when voters approved a constitutional amendment moving away from an appointment system. There were minor tweaks over the years, and in 1968 voters approved retention elections for sitting judges. This was designed to insulate them from political considerations on the bench.
A 1969 referendum asked voters whether they wanted statewide judges elected or appointed, and a majority stuck with the status quo.

In 1988, a blue-ribbon commission established by Gov. Robert Casey called for the appointment of appellate judges and allowing voters in individual counties to decide whether to continue to hold partisan elections for trial judges. The panel found that elections were particularly problematic in large counties like Philadelphia, where more than a dozen judges had been entangled in a bribery scandal involving gifts from Roofers Union officials.

The proposed changes were not adopted by the legislature, and subsequent efforts to pick judges based on merit have yet to succeed.
Locally, there was one minor victory for reformers in recent years. Amid allegations of rampant corruption in Philadelphia Traffic Court, voters approved a ballot initiative abolishing it.

What’s the latest proposal?
Lawmakers in Harrisburg are considering a constitutional amendment that would rely on a bipartisan citizens commission — composed of lawyers and non-lawyers chosen by the governor and legislative leaders — to recommend qualified judges for appellate courts.

The governor would choose nominees from that list, and they would need to be confirmed by the Senate. Judges would serve for four years and then face retention elections for a 10-year term.

The legislature would have to pass the resolution in consecutive two-year sessions, at which point the question would go to voters in a referendum.
The House Judiciary Committee advanced the measure on a party-line vote Tuesday, with Republicans supporting it and Democrats opposed. The measure would not affect lower courts.
Similar legislation advanced to the House floor last session but ultimately died.

What’s the resistance to merit selection?
It can be hard to get anything done in Harrisburg, even more so when it involves amending the constitution.

Maida Milone, executive director of the advocacy group Pennsylvania for Modern Courts, said that unlike issues such as health care, judicial reform doesn’t have a natural constituency.

In addition, “There is this perception that changing to an appointment system is somehow taking the vote away from the people, and legislators don’t want to be accused of doing that,” Milone said.

But she noted that voters would have to approve the change. “We’re not doing anything except giving voters the opportunity to say, ‘You know what, in these statewide races, I don’t have a clue, and I don’t feel equipped to make a decision about who’s going to be a great appellate judge.’"

By ​ MEGAN HARRIS, KILEY KOSCINSKI & JULIA ZENKEVICH

Over the past few years, housing experts have found a disturbing pattern of high eviction rates in cities throughout the U.S. As a result, local governments, community organizations, and housing advocates have come together to try and combat this issue. 

On Tue., March 12, the Philadelphia-based organization Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts (PMC) and 31st Magisterial District Judge Mik Pappas will try to empower Pittsburgh citizens with a Landlord-Tenant Town Hall.

As the Facebook event page points out, the Landlord-Tenant Town Hall was organized in response to concerns about access to affordable housing, particularly in Pittsburgh's rapidly changing East End, where Black tenants feel especially pushed out by development in the wake of the highly contentious Penn Plaza demolition. Hosted by Pappas, the event, held at the Bloomfield Garfield Community Center, seeks to educate citizens on the legal process of eviction. 

PMC president and CEO, Maida Malone, says they approached the Pittsburgh Foundation about funding for the workshop due to the organization’s work to eliminate housing insecurity. 

“They, being extremely sensitive to what’s happening the community, particularly around the high rate of evictions, asked if we could initially focus our programming around landlord-tenant disputes, and we were very happy to do that,” says Malone. 

In 2017, the Pittsburgh Foundation launched a research project inspired by the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Harvard sociology professor Matthew Desmond. Conducted in collaboration with the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, the project looked at filings for eviction in 2016 in Allegheny County. Of the 1,227 cases filed by City Housing Authority officials in 2016, 142 ended in actual evictions.

While a 2018 report by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University found that Pittsburgh eviction rates remain low compared to the national average, housing advocates argue the numbers only account for cases that actually make it to court. Tenants are more likely to move out after receiving an eviction notice rather than fight it, as an eviction filing would go on their rental history and give landlords a reason to deny future applications. 
Malone says that over the past few years it became clear to PMC that most people who lack resources or an understanding of the judicial system are at a disadvantage when trying to navigate eviction proceedings.

“Because there are so many people … who are not able to afford counsel to represent them, they can find the judicial system and the legal processes very difficult to manage, particularly if they’re facing other stresses in their lives,” she says. “It’s difficult for them to really understand exactly what they need to do to represent themselves and to protect their rights or reasonably resolve a dispute with their landlord.”

To try and alleviate this, PMC started doing the town hall workshops in different locations through Pennsylvania. Malone estimates that they have held several across the state in the last two months alone and plan to do more in the near future.

Each event recruits local magisterial court judges, lawyers, and other experts to volunteer their time and help attendees feel more comfortable engaging with the courts.

“There really has been, on their part, a real openness and willingness to do this, which I think also helps, because oftentimes when people confront the judicial system it’s usually unpleasant for them,” says Malone. “My hope as well in doing this is, not only are we benefiting community members, but we’re also helping them to see judges in circumstances where they are willingly giving up their time and coming out to the community to talk to people and answer their questions and help them.”

The first panel at the Bloomfield Garfield Community Center includes attorneys from Action Housing, Inc., the Community Justice Project, and the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. The second panel features stakeholders from the City of Pittsburgh Housing Opportunity Fund, the Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, Pittsburgh UNITED, Omicelo, the Department of Human Services of Allegheny County, and the East Liberty Coalition of Organized Residents.

All attendees will also receive an up-to-date Landlord-Tenant Handbook, produced by PMC. To make the event as accessible as possible, it’s also free to attend and offers free childcare.

“We want to help underserved residents who can’t afford counsel have as much information as they can to be better able to navigate the judicial system,” says Malone.

By Maida Milone

When you believe something makes great good sense, you imagine the path to success being a straight line to the goal. That’s rarely, if ever, the case, of course. The natural confidence you feel when tackling a project can cause a trick of the mind, a belief that others will immediately see the logic of your position and share your passion for it. The disillusionment that follows their failure to adopt your plan wholeheartedly or to be cajoled into following you regardless of their questions or concerns can create rifts. Those rifts lead to paralyzingly partisanship or raised voices or stalemates, but never to consensus.
Coalition building is hard work, especially when what you want to accomplish has no natural constituency. It requires active listening, not that pale substitute of making eye contact while you are formulating your next point regardless of whether it is responsive to what the speaker has to say or not. No one changes their mind or finds their way to a different perspective if they are not heard.
Coalition building requires respect for those who disagree with you, even if they seem stubborn or unwilling to hear your arguments. They might have a good point or expose a flaw in your thinking that your enthusiasm blinds you from seeing. And while the experience of cognitive dissonance—that knot in your stomach that follows your recognition that someone else might have a good point and that you just might have to rethink or revise something in your plan—is so very hard to manage, it is an essential part of getting the job done well.

​Read More

By Maida Milone and Julia Jones

Questions about judicial independence and accountability seem to be on just about everyone’s mind these days. Our hope for this article is to contribute to this critical national dialogue by taking a hard look at the processes by which judicial officers are selected and sharing some thoughts about how best to ensure the legitimacy of those selection processes. In particular, we examine here how “appointive systems” function and suggest ways in which they might bolster public confidence in their choices.

A word about us. Judicial selection systems are of particular interest to us. We are both associated with Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts (PMC). In the 1980s, public confidence in the Pennsylvania judiciary sank to an all-time low following a series of public judicial scandals. To restore citizens’ faith in the courts, then-Superior Court Judge Phyllis W. Beck joined with other respected civic leaders to form PMC. Established as a non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting judicial ethics, PMC has functioned as Pennsylvania’s only official “court watchdog” for nearly 30 years.

One of PMC’s core missions is merit selection reform, including amending Pennsylvania’s constitution to establish a meritbased appointive process for selecting its appellate judges and justices. To develop a model for a proposed appointive system for use in Pennsylvania, we surveyed a variety of appointive systems from across the country. We draw on that knowledge base here.

In this article, we first examine the perils of influence-seeking money in judicial elections in Pennsylvania and nationwide. Second, we briefly sketch various approaches to appointive judicial selection systems in use throughout the nation. Third, we review Delaware’s judicial appointment process and compare it with the model we have developed for meritbased selection of appellate judges and justices in Pennsylvania. Fourth, we take a look at some of the criticisms that have been leveled against merit selection processes. Finally, we share some thoughts on best practices for implementing a merit selection system to ensure public confidence in the quality and independence of jurists seated through that process.

Big Money’s Influence in Judicial Elections

To one extent or another, Pennsylvania has relied upon an elected judiciary since 1850. Today, even the most qualified judicial candidates for statewide appellate judgeships are dependent on campaign contributions from individuals and special interest groups with business before the courts. This dependency creates an appearance of impropriety that ultimately undermines public confidence in Pennsylvania’s courts and potentially threatens judicial independence. As of 2001, 90 percent of voters nationwide believed that special interest groups attempt to shape policy by contributing to judicial campaigns. Eighty percent of judges reported having the same concerns. As one Texas judge memorably said, calling judicial electoral systems “‘imperfect’ is a G-rated description,” and noted that he and every member of his court “aggressively” favors replacing them Recognizing that judicial elections would also eliminate the need for aspiring judges to fundraise, PMC has been a longtime supporter of merit selection reform.

As recently as November 7, 2017, Pennsylvanians voted to retain two sitting Supreme Court Justices and elected one for a 10-year term, all of whom were required to raise some amount of money in order to be competitive candidates. One of the candidates for the open seat on the bench raised significant dollars from an interest group that were used to fuel a last-minute television ad blitz against the candidate’s opponent that some people viewed as unfairly slanted. This election, not unlike others in the past, resulted in candidates who were deemed “unqualified” for the bench by the Commonwealth’s bar associations defeating candidates who were deemed “highly qualified.”

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks court issues, Pennsylvania’s 2015 Supreme Court election “cost” nearly $16 million dollars, including $12 million in television spending — a form of advertising that often disseminates negative or inflammatory information about judicial candidates and their past decisions. Moreover, voters usually had no idea who was paying for this advertising. The Center found that only 3 percent of the organizations that funded television spending in the race did so transparently — the identities of most donors were undisclosed.

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