Vol. 8 No. 4 (April 1998) pp. 196-197.

CHOOSING JUSTICE: THE RECRUITMENT OF STATE AND FEDERAL JUDGES
by Charles H. Sheldon and Linda S. Maule. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1997. 287 pp. $35.00 Cloth. ISBN: 0874221528.

Reviewed by Gerard S. Gryski, Department of Political Science, Auburn University.

The premise on which this informative and readable book rests is that judges confront a "judicial dilemma:" balancing the conflicting demands of being objective in the resolution of disputes and being accountable to the community in making policy. Put slightly differently: the rule of law dictates judicial independence, but majoritarian democracy requires attention to the needs of society. The focus of the volume is on how various recruitment processes influence the resolution of the judicial dilemma.

The first chapter is a brief and useful history of judicial selection, which would have benefited from a more analytic conclusion. In the next chapter the authors present the major contribution of the book, a model for understanding judicial recruitment. They note that despite a hefty literature on judicial recruitment, the research has neither reached firm conclusions about the effects of formal methods of selection nor developed a unified framework from which to integrate the study of federal and state judicial selection. The model they posit contains characteristics that are common to all forms of judicial selection, which thereby elevates the opportunities both for comparative analyses of different systems and for understanding the role that selection plays in judicial behavior.

Sheldon and Maule stipulate in their model that all recruitment systems share a common recruitment sequence-from initiation, to screening, to affirmation. Judicial candidacies are initiated either by the aspirant (self-initiation) or another person or group (other-initiation). Similarly there are two forms of screening: comparative, in which one candidate is judged against another; qualifying, in which candidates are evaluated against a set of requisite qualifications. Affirmation is those actors and processes involved in the final and formal selection of judges.

This recruitment sequence is the "common denominator" for selection research. What distinguishes different modes of selections from each one another is the range and number of participants who are active and effective at various steps in the sequence. At the extremes, a large number of participants who are active at each step results in a high articulation selection system, with the converse of a small number of sporadic actors producing a low articulation system. In elective selection systems, for example, the level of articulation is a function of the voter turnout (participation), the number of candidates on the ballot (contestedness), and the size of the winning margin (competitiveness). For appointive systems, the level of articulation is measured by the size of the qualified candidate pool, the number of endorsements by salient political groups, submission of ratings by bar associations, amount of lobbying for various candidates by interested persons and groups, and the degree of visibility or publicity in the affirmation end of the process. As such the model accommodates all selections systems.

The grist of the model is the degree of articulation endemic to a selection system, measured by the number of effective participants in the three stages of the recruitment sequence. High articulation systems foster a balance in the two competing values of the judicial dilemma, whereas low articulation systems are skewed toward either accountability or independence. Following the earlier work of John Wahlke on state legislatures, each type of system manifests two distinct "roles." In high articulation judiciaries jurists adopt either a steward (balancing public demands) or politico (balancing political demands) role. In low articulation systems the role options are delegate (public or political deference for the accountability species) and trustee (reliance upon one's own judgment for the independence variety).

For the most part, the remainder of the book consists of suggestive--highly suggestive, indeed--ways to apply the model to various modes of judicial selection, with each chapter opening with useful background on the type of system, followed by an extended illustration. The chapter on nonpartisan electoral system, with Washington being the case study, is the most useful because the authors collected information to subject the model to empirical scrutiny. The chapters on partisan elections (Texas), legislative selection (South Carolina), appointive (New Jersey), and merit commission (Florida) systems are more exploratory in nature. The chapters on the three tiers of the federal judiciary astutely demarcate both the obvious and subtle differences among the levels with respect to range and intensity of interaction of the assortment of players and interested publics. Also included are ten appendices totaling about sixty pages that range from reports to sample ballots to nominee questionnaires to testimony before confirmation committees.

Sheldon and Maule's work is a very important contribution to the study of judicial process and judicial behavior, in no small part because it helps to unite the two. It also takes the step of integrating the study of judicial selection with the political process of which it is a part, opening up along the way a host of possibilities for the comparative study of selection systems. The significance of the work by necessity is limited by the need for further empirical testing. Yet it is well worth the attention of judicial scholars, and with the background discussions of various types of selection systems it is a book worthy of consideration for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on judicial process.
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