Dear Neighbors:
The Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, marking the start of another religious new year, begins tomorrow night. I wish those in our community observing the holiday a Shanah Tovah, a sweet and peaceful New Year. In this week’s letter, I will the judicial selection process and remind readers of this week’s community meeting.
A. The Judicial Selection Process
1. The Superior Court Vacancies
Over the summer, four Rhode Island Superior Court judges (the Honorables Alice Gibney, Daniel Procaccini, Stephen Nugent and Melanie Wilk Thunberg) announced their plans to retire. Each served on the Court for 25 years or longer, during which time it was my privilege to appear before all of them and try cases before three of them. I will particularly miss outgoing Chief Judge Gibney, who had a gentle but effective way of restraining excessively zealous attorneys to maintain order in the courtroom. They all will be missed.
2. Problems With Current Judicial Selection Process
These vacancies will mark an important transition in our Superior Court, bringing our judicial selection process to the fore. Under the current process, candidates apply through the appointed Judicial Nominating Commission. The Commission selects “qualified” candidates to interview publicly, and then submits a list of 3 to 5 “highly qualified” candidates from which the Governor can choose a nomination. As described in my November 17, 2024 letter (at Part C), this system can create anomalies over time, as a candidate who makes one list as “highly qualified” (and is not nominated by the Governor) may reapply only to find they do not make the “highly qualified” list for a subsequent vacancy. With the multiple Superior Court vacancies, it is possible that the Nominating Commission will consider two Superior Court vacancies at one, submitting two different list of “highly qualified” candidates to the Governor. This means that two candidates appear on List A and not List B, the Governor can choose only one of them, even though they are both “highly qualified.”
3. A Legislative Solution
In the past, the General Assembly removed this anomaly by enacting legislation each year allow any “highly qualified” candidate to remain eligible for appointment for any vacancy for a year before having to re-apply. I introduced S-206, which allowed a “highly qualified” candidate to remain eligible for appointment for a period of three years absent a second Judicial Nominating Commission vote removing a candidate from the list due to a change in qualifications. The Senate passed this bill last year, but the House did not. Given the four vacancies in the Superior Court, I will re-file the bill in January and advocate to the House of Representatives to pass the bill this year to resolve the anomalies presented by the current system.
B. Reminder: Community Meeting
Between the RIPTA budget locally and the Revolution Wind stop work order and other national developments, I would like to hear your thoughts about where our State is going, and how I can do a better job representing our neighborhood in the Senate. To that end, I have scheduled a community meeting to take place on Wednesday, September 24 from 6:00 – 7:45 at the Rochambeau Library. I look forward to seeing you there.