Friday, February 17, 2012

Last night the retention of Judges Carroll, Pearson, and Magistrate Peterson got started with the appearance of all three before the Judicial Retention Committee. The committee, of course, has statements from each judge as well as survey results and comments from many of you. Obviously this isn’t the case for Judge Peterson who was only sworn in sometime last week. in fact, he has yet to sit on any cases. he expects his confirmation appointment with the Senate Judiciary Committee to be either next Friday or the Friday after the Town Meeting break. Confirmation and retention running concurrently; interesting huh?
Judge Carroll explained her last six years as having been divided between the criminal and family divisions in both Windham and Bennington Counties. She feels much more comfortable as a judge now than six years ago. She enjoys the family caseload and would like to stay in that rotation. She feels as though she’s making a difference there. Her passion is juvenile law. She talked about some of the challenges of being a judge, most notably the travel and the impact of furlough days. The only real concern raised in the comments is that she is biased towards the prosecution. She replied at length and explained that she makes every effort to consider all sides, admitting however that, during her 12 years as a prosecutor, things were much more “black and white” than they appear to her now as a judge.
Magistrate Peterson is the first to be retained under this process. the judicial restructuring bill of 2010 extended judicial retention to magistrates. Previously the governor had full discretion whether to reappoint or not. His testimony really focused on his experiences as a acting judge in small claims matters as well as extensive experience as an acting magistrate. He reminded the committee of the extension of magistrate jurisdiction that was also included in the judicial restructuring bill.
Finally Judge Pearson appeared, fresh from a jury trial in Hyde Park. He jumped right into responding to some negative comments about his “arrogance”; “acting like a king”; and “doesn’t realize he is a public servant”. It was obvious that these comments affected him deeply and he talked about them at length. I’m sure he and the others ahd in mind last year’s negative recommendation on the retention of a judge when they responded to these comments. However, in Judge Pearson’s case, the ratings in the survey were good and most recommended his retention.
You and members of the public have the opportunity to comment on these judges on Tuesday February 28th beginning at 7 PM in the statehouse.
Have a nice weekend; thanks for reading.