islandpacket.com - The Island Packet Online

Search Everything in the Lowcountry and the Coastal Empire.

Judicial openings could be springboard for change

Lawmakers should work toward diversity on the bench

Add Comment

The chief justice of the S.C. Supreme Court heralded a change last week that should be a part of the political debate in this year's election. Chief Justice Jean Toal said the court faces a major change with three of five justices expected to retire by the end of 2008.

The retirements offer an opportunity for more diversity on the state's highest court, but any discussion also offers a chance for an examination of ways to bring more diversity to all ranks of our court system.

That task falls to the General Assembly. South Carolina's method of selecting judges leaves the ultimate decision up to state lawmakers. Lawmakers also dominate the Judicial Merit Screening Commission, which determines who is qualified to sit on the bench.

Over the years, limits have been put on legislators' ability to run for a seat on the bench and on candidates' ability to lobby lawmakers for their votes. Private citizens have been added to the Screening Commission. Still, not enough has changed.

Gov. Mark Sanford addressed this issue in his State of the State address in January, when he said that nearly 30 percent of South Carolinians are "African-American, and yet only 10 percent of the judges" fall into that demographic.

Toal lends the only diversity to an otherwise all-male, all-white five-member Supreme Court. Across the judicial system about 17 percent of the state's judges are women and 6 percent are black.

Failure to address the low number of black and women jurists on the bench in South Carolina has been a great disappointment of decades of legislative sessions. Just two years ago, lawmakers wanted to await a study that ultimately revealed what they already knew and had been told for years by the S.C. Legislative Black Caucus -- too little diversity.

A more equitable gender and racial balance to increase the number of women, blacks and Latinos on the bench is important because people have more confidence in a system that reflects their numbers in the population. Judges preside over courts that make life-altering decisions. They put people in jail. They grant divorces. They separate children and parents. They determine child support. They settle business disputes.

Over the years, Toal has suggested that as a starting point, South Carolinians recruit more women and minorities for the state's law schools. When nearly three-fourths of the state's lawyers are white males, it is little wonder that the faces on the bench belong to white males.

Diversifying the judiciary won't come overnight. Pressure from the Legislative Black Caucus and voters might help change the numbers.

In the meantime, the 63-year-old chief justice said she isn't retiring anytime soon, putting her in a prime position to keep the issue alive.