RODNEY PEEPLES is a man of distinction. He has been on the bench longer than any other judge in South Carolina. He has served longer on the state Circuit Court than all but one judge since at least the Civil War. And but for a spellbinding and transformational episode of political intrigue a decade and a half ago, he would likely be South Carolina's chief justice today.

Therein lies the flip side of his distinction: Judge Peeples has managed to keep his seat despite deep concerns about his ethics and demeanor that consistently ranked him at the bottom of the S.C. Bar's analyses of judges -- and despite the distinction of being the only sitting Circuit Court judge in the state ever to be publicly reprimanded by the state Supreme Court.

While the distinctions might well stand, Judge Peeples' 30-year tenure on the bench is coming to an end. The Judicial Merit Selection Commission announced earlier this month that it is seeking candidates for the seat occupied since 1974 by Judge Peeples, who is not seeking re-election when his term expires June 30.

The story of Judge Peeples' rise to and fall from near-greatness is in many ways the story of our state's struggle to turn our judicial selection system into one based on what you know instead of whom you know. It is useful to recall that story, to show how far we have come -- and how far we have to go.

Judge Peeples, a Barnwell County jurist with powerful political connections, was widely considered heir apparent of South Carolina's legal kingmaker, Chief Justice Bubba Ness. He had worked the General Assembly for more than a decade, and had collected all the necessary commitments from legislators to win an open seat on the high court when his mentor retired. He was what seemed a mere technicality away from taking that seat in 1987. Had he won, he would in almost all certainty now be chief justice instead of Jean Toal.

But the technicality was an important one: The legislators who had promised to elect him had to actually cast their votes, and they had to do so in public. And that became politically impossible after an Orangeburg attorney raised explosive allegations about Judge Peeples' ethical fitness. The attorney told the Legislature's judicial screening committee that Judge Peeples had lied under oath and abused his position as a judge in order to enrich his daughters, who were named as beneficiaries in a will over which he had been named executor.

The screening committee deadlocked, 4-4, on whether this disqualified Judge Peeples from sitting on the Supreme Court. Still, it looked for a time as if the Legislature would elect him anyway. But then the screening committee took the audacious step of asking the Supreme Court whether an ethics investigation had been launched against Judge Peeples; the next day, he withdrew from the race, paving the way for Justice Toal's election.

A year later, the Supreme Court issued a public reprimand, saying Judge Peeples had prepared a will naming his daughters beneficiaries without making a full disclosure of the potential conflicts of interest; lent the prestige of his judicial office to advance the interests of another person, by trying to collect money for a former client; and engaged in the practice of law. (The court found insufficient evidence to reprimand him on charges of lying under oath.)

The saga marked a crucial turning point in South Carolina, and not just because it led to the election of one of our most brilliant chief justices. This was the beginning of a long journey toward the Legislature considering something other than political connections in the selection of the people who hold the very power of life and death. The first step was a prohibition on judicial candidates locking up commitments for votes before they pass screening. It sparked the campaign that eventually put a backbone into the screening committee and teeth into the screening process. Today, the Legislature may not elect a judge who fails screening, and the quality of candidates has improved noticeably.

Despite those improvements, though, this is not a complete success story. Judge Peeples' political connections remained so strong that no one was willing to even run against him when his term expired in 1992. No one ran against him when that term expired in 1998. And despite the tough new screening process that had just been implemented, he breezed through screening and was, indeed, re-elected in 1998.

The state's mandatory retirement law for judges would have allowed Judge Peeples to serve another nine years. But while I'd like to think the same thing happened to him as happened to our state's other unfit Circuit judge, who retired when it became clear that he would not be able to pass the new screening process, there is no reason to believe that is the case. The only obstacle Judge Peeples faced was the prospect of actually having an opponent this time around.

And this points to a continuing shortcoming of the screening as well as the election process: Whether a judge has any hope of being re-elected shouldn't depend simply on whether anyone runs against him; it should depend first and foremost on whether he deserves to stay on the bench. Judge Peeples' 1988 reprimand should have doomed his chance of being re-elected in 1992, and certainly in the reformed world of 1998. It should have doomed his chance of being re-elected in 2004. That there's no indication it did shows we still have work to do.