Misplaced Pages

Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

The Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission was established in 1958 when Kansas voters approved an amendment to the state's constitution. The commission is tasked with presenting the governor with a slate of three qualified candidates whenever a vacancy occurs on the Kansas Supreme Court . The governor interviews the candidates and makes the appointment. This process, known as merit selection, is used by Kansas and 21 other states, along with the District of Columbia, for selecting all members of their highest court.

#35964

8-539: The Court of Appeals used the same process until 2013 when the Kansas Legislature changed the process to allow the governor to nominate a candidate who is then approved by the Kansas Senate . The commission has nine members. Four are non-attorneys appointed by the governor; four others are attorneys selected by attorneys in each of the state's four congressional districts. The chair of the commission, an attorney,

16-526: A two-day period every month. Decisions of the Court of Appeals are filed weekly, usually on Friday mornings. There is no right to an appeal from the judgments of the Court of Appeals. Parties who lose their appeal in the Court of Appeals may petition the Kansas Supreme Court to review the decision, but the justices are not required to do so. Court of Appeals judges are appointed to four-year terms by

24-465: Is elected by attorneys in a statewide vote. The current chair is Anne Burke. After being appointed to the Kansas Supreme Court bench, a justice is subject to a retention election after one year. Subsequently, justices are subject to retention elections every six years. Source: Attorney members Non attorney members Periodically, Kansas legislators propose to change the way Kansas Supreme Court justices are selected, which would require an amendment to

32-654: The Governor of Kansas , with confirmation by the Kansas Senate. Until 2013, the Governor would appoint a justice from a list of qualified individuals submitted to him by the Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission . The judges go through a retention election after their initial appointment. The chief judge is elected by the members of the court. Before July 1, 2014, the Kansas Supreme Court appointed

40-558: The District of Columbia have merit selection commissions where a majority of the members are attorneys. Kansas Court of Appeals The Kansas Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level statewide appellate court for the U.S. state of Kansas . The Kansas Legislature created the first Kansas Court of Appeals in 1895, to help the Kansas Supreme Court with an increasingly heavy caseload. The original statute that created

48-474: The court contained a sunset provision that allowed the court to expire in 1901. The Court of Appeals was reestablished permanently in 1977 as a seven-member appellate court—expanded to ten judges in 1987, then later to twelve and then to fourteen. The Court of Appeals hears all appeals from orders of the State Corporation Commission , original actions in habeas corpus , and all appeals from

56-586: The state constitution. As recently as February 2016, such an attempt was defeated in the legislature. Stephen Ware, a law professor at the University of Kansas , is a critic of the way justices are selected in Kansas. In a 2007 paper, he wrote, "Kansas is the only state in the union that gives the members of its bar majority control over the selection of state supreme court justices." However, five other states — Florida, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming — and

64-613: The state district courts in both civil and criminal cases (except those that may be appealed directly to the Kansas Supreme Court). Kansas Court of Appeals judges sit in panels of three at locations throughout the state, but most frequently at the primary courtroom in the Kansas Judicial Center in Topeka . The court also has the power to review matters en banc . Each panel typically rules on approximately 30 appeals over

#35964