Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s blatant political interference has tainted a process designed to select the best nominees for judicial vacancies, reducing it to an exercise in cronyism and nepotism. And whenever that happens, corruption and incompetence on the bench are never far behind.
In February, after vetting the applications of 31 candidates for three vacancies in Anne Arundel’s District Court, the Judicial Nominating Commission — whose 13 members are appointed by the governor and local bar associations — sent the names of the five most qualified candidates chosen by secret ballot to the governor for his final selection. A month later, however, O’Malley issued an executive order requiring all judicial nominating commissions in the state to send him three names for each vacancy — in effect requiring them to submit their second-choice candidates in addition to their top picks. And one of the previously rejected candidates just happened to be Thomas V. Miller III — the son of Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Calvert and Prince George’s.
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Commission chairman Thomas Fleckenstein, an O’Malley appointee, maintains that the executive order only gave the “appearance” of political meddling by the governor, but other commissioners aren’t buying it. The public shouldn’t either.
Three commissioners resigned in protest, including O’Malley appointee Paula Peters, who had served on the nominating panel since 1985. The Annapolis lawyer complained that she was heavily lobbied by “political people” to include the younger Miller in the commission’s final list. With just four years of experience practicing law, she pointed out, he would never have been considered for a judgeship were he not the son of the most powerful Democratic legislator in Annapolis.
Peters may just be one of the “political enemies”the Senate president — who coincidentally chaired the panel that appointed his son to the Parole Commission 12 years ago — railed against. It’s more likely that, with the state legislature firmly in his grasp, the elder Miller is trying to extend his political tentacles to the judicial branch in a power grab in which the governor himself, to his great shame, is a willing accomplice.
O’Malley’s executive order signals his clear intention to select Maryland judges on the basis of nepotism and political connections, not court experience and legal qualifications. When he picks second-string nominees for the bench, he’s depriving all Marylanders of the first-rate justice they deserve.
