Here is some advice for picking a good judge

Anne Arundel County voters are wrapping up their first experience with mail-in voting for the primary election that ends on Tuesday night. The most competitive race on the ballot is the one for four Circuit Court judgeships.

Normally, the Capital Gazette Editorial Board would meet with candidates for judge, engage them in conversations about the job and their background — perhaps even get them to talk to each other — and then offer a recommendation to readers.

Not this year. The coronavirus pandemic has made campaigning very difficult. We’ve shared what the six candidates submitted about themselves in our online voters’ guide, and all have addressed readers directly through “Why I’m Running” columns. Even if we had been able to complete the process as we have in the past, however, endorsing a judge is difficult.

Four of the candidates were appointed by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan: judges Pamela Alban, Elizabeth Morris, Rob Thompson and Richard Trunnell. They have been hearing cases, depending on the dates of their appointment, for months or just over a year. Two challengers, former county State’s Attorney Wes Adams and private practice attorney Annette DeCesaris, are hoping to unseat them.

The four candidates who win the most votes in both the Republican and the Democratic primaries move ahead to the November general election. If the sitting judges finish atop both contests, there is no vote in the fall. The winners secure a 15-year term on the bench.

The sitting judges were vetted by a system Maryland has long used to fill Circuit Court vacancies. Candidates apply, a judicial commission reviews their applications and background, conducts interviews and then consults with various bar associations and other groups. It sends the names of those it rates highest to the governor.

This process is designed to seat judges who act as an umpire, calling balls and strikes and apply both laws as adopted by state and local governments as well as case law as defined by appellate courts.

Unlike federal courts, where the judicial interpretation of the hard to change Constitution is broadly defined as textualism, originalism and the living constitution, state trial judges hew closely to laws that are much easier to change. Philosophy is less important at the state level than expertise. It’s difficult to look for clues about expertise in the record established so far by the judges. None have been on the bench long enough to handle a controversial case that might expose their ability to public scrutiny. Maryland’s process for complaints about judges is secret unless there is a finding of misconduct. So far, that has not happened. What voters are really being asked to do is vote on the process. Did the nominating commission and the governor get it right when they passed over, for example, Adams?

He and his supporters certainly think not. But there is a highly unusual campaign aimed at defeating him separate from the judges’ campaign slate, a more common practice. Its focus is on Adams’ rejection of the system and his term as the county’s top prosecutor — a job he lost in the 2018 election to the woman he beat in 2014.

Dozens of employees left the office after Adams took over, something many attributed to his management style and that of his top lieutenant and political adviser. Adams disagrees with this interpretation and argues he lost because it was a bad year at the ballot box for Republicans and not because of his record.

Adams’ name recognition is such that we suspect he could finish in the top four in the Republican primary. If that happens, or if Decesaris pulls an upset in her second run for judge, these same arguments will play out in a more robust fall campaign.

We’ll save our endorsements for October.