Articles by three Elon Law faculty members, exploring the question of whether judges in North Carolina should be elected or appointed, are featured in the Spring 2010 edition of The North Carolina State Bar Journal, along with a review of a public debate on the subject held at the law school in October.
The feature article, by Elon Law professor Alan Woodlief, summarizes highlights from a public debate on the subject held at Elon Law on October 29.
In that debate North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice (ret.) Jim Exum, who serves as Distinguished Jurist in Residence at Elon Law, urged that North Carolina move to a system of appointing judges, arguing that elections wrongly influence judges to consider the political implications of their decisions.
Elon Law professor Scott Gaylord defended judicial elections in the debate, saying an appointive system could create undue influence by the executive and legislative branches on the judiciary.
In addition to reviewing the Elon Law debate, the NC State Bar Journal also published three articles by Elon Law faculty members Gaylord, Andrew Haile, and Woodlief, originally published in the Greensboro News & Record.
Click on the E-Cast link to the right of this article to download a copy of the Spring 2010 edition of the North Carolina State Bar Journal, in which the Elon Law debate on judicial selection is featured beginning on page 12.
The North Carolina State Bar Journal is distributed to every attorney licensed to practice in North Carolina, and also reaches judges, many of the nation’s law libraries, bar members throughout the nation who are licensed in North Carolina, and other interested subscribers and organizations.