CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In the wake of a new state law passed this year creating non-partisan election of judges, West Virginia Supreme Court administrator Steve Canterbury says the new election process has many advantages.
Canterbury said the law, which will first be used in the May 2016 election, will give time for judges to go to judicial college and observe rather than learning on the fly, which currently happens now when they are elected in November and take the bench in January.
“This will allow us time to send our newly elected judges who aren’t taking the bench after May (elections) until January 1st to National Judicial College without them sitting on the bench for a couple months trying to find their way,” Canterbury said.
He said the time also allows for new judges to spend time with their mentor judges, observe, and decide how they’ll run their courtroom. He also said the new policy would help the way state courts are viewed nationally.
“Nationally this will help the reputation of West Virginia courts,” he said. “This legislature was very concerned that there are a number of groups who have been condemnatory of those states that have party politics involved with judicial elections.”
The new law calls for all judicial elections to be non-partisan and final in the May election cycle. There will be no primaries in judicial elections, just like school board elections are now in West Virginia. The races will also be in divisions, which will create more one-on-one match-ups. Canterbury said that’s not a bad thing.
“Often there’ll be two magistrates in a county, and one is very strong but the other isn’t doing a great job,” he said. “So somebody that runs, who knows which one he’ll beat.”