Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Contact: Jessica Robinson, 573-751-0290
Governor's Office Questions Missing Documents in Supreme Court Candidate Applications
JEFFERSON CITY–Gov. Matt Blunt's office today raised questions about information in the Supreme Court Candidates' applications that was withheld by the Appellate Judicial Commission. The commission asserted Friday the applications they delivered to the governor's office were complete, but a review found that documents were missing or removed from the original applications submitted by the candidates.
The missing documents include one candidate's statement of judicial philosophy, another candidate's list of cases as required by the commission and background check authorizations for all three candidates.
"Upon review, we found that the three Supreme Court candidate's application materials you sent to our office last Thursday were incomplete," said the Governor's Chief Counsel Henry Herschel in a letter to Judge Laura Denvir Stith, the chair of the Judicial Appellate Commission.
After initial research that included a request from each candidate for copies of their original application, it became clear that the commission removed or withheld pertinent information from the applications provided to the governor.
Missing documents include:
- one candidate's list of cases tried
- one candidate's statements of judicial philosophy
- background check authorization forms for all three candidates
The commission asked each applicant twenty-five questions including a request for a list of ten legal cases they have tried. The materials sent to the governor's office did not include an answer to this question by one of the candidates. After contacting the candidate, the governor's office was provided with a two page addendum that had been provided to the commission but was missing from the application. This addendum listed only four cases that had been tried by this candidate.
Additionally, one of the candidate's statements of judicial philosophy, provided to the Appellate Commission as an addendum, was omitted. This was particularly enlightening as it addressed head on the question of judicial philosophy by one of the candidates.
The applications from the commission also failed to include the signed permission waivers for background checks and the background checks themselves. It is not known whether the commission ran background checks on the candidates or why copies of the authorization forms were removed from the application files.
The governor's office previously requested all available information from the Appellate Judicial Commission and has expanded that request to include information about why relevant material was excluded from the provided materials. The request is part of the exhaustive interview process in motion to help Gov. Matt Blunt determine who of the three candidates will serve as Missouri's next Supreme Court Judge.
In Missouri, the governor does not appoint a judge to the Supreme Court from citizens at large. Instead an Appellate Judicial Commission, made up of the presiding chief justice, three lawyers chosen by the Missouri Bar and three people appointed by governors, selects a panel of three candidates. Gov. Blunt has appointed only one of the three commissioners, and the others were appointed by former Gov. Bob Holden. The governor has 60 days to appoint one of the three nominated candidates to the Supreme Court.