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Let us take away from the people the
right to determine who their judges are.
Let us assume that a select few can pick
the best executive and the best legislators
and once we have them in office, then let
us keep them there for life, because I think
that that is what the adoption of the Niles
Plan would do. I, therefore, urge you to
support the amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Winslow.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: Mr. Chair-
man, may I rise to a point of personal
privilege first, and then to speak?
THE CHAIRMAN: You may.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: Mr. Chair-
man, you will recall that on Friday you
read some excerpts from a letter quoting
some students who had visited the Conven-
tion, and in those excerpts there was men-
tion of one candy bar given to one of the
delegates.
I understand that there was no request
made in connection with that gift for any
support or lack of support for anything
that happens on this floor. But I should like
to add that the wrapper of that candy bar
carried the inscription "Forever Yours."
Now, may I speak against the amend-
ment?
THE CHAIRMAN: You may.
DELEGATE WINSLOW: There was a
time when I naively believed that a letter
to the governor from an interested citizen
asking that he perform his function of
judicial appointment carefully, and in the
interest of equal justice, would have some
effect. I tried it.
I was assured by the then governor that
I had nothing to fear at his hands, where-
upon the governor appointed a judge, who
spent the mornings setting forth even-
handed justice from the bench and the
afternoon rounding up support for his po-
litical party.
I suggest that only a very superior sort
of person can do those two jobs equally
well at the same time.
I may say, I was not very happy about
that appointment, and recognizing that my
letters to the governor would not have very
much effect, I began looking around for
some new and different and perhaps more
promising way of selecting judges, and in
the pages of the journal of the American
Juridical Society, and this may I say was
almost forty years ago, before most of you
knew there was an American Juridical So-
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ciety or a system of Maryland Courts, I
found there a scheme outline for the se-
lection of judges.
It was a scheme which became a little
later the Missouri system, and I have
watched its progress from that day until
this, and am convinced, even more now
than I was then, that this is the proper
method of securing the best possible ju-
dicial candidates.
I am pleased that the minority agrees
with me. The minority position is that we
should have nominating commissions at the
appellate level. Why? In order to secure
judges of superior quality, the best of the
best. But I get a little troubled by the logic
of the minority. If we can get the best of
the best of the nominating commission I
suggest that by all that is consistent we
apply the same scheme at the trial level,
for the minority insists that there are the
courts where most of the cases arise, and
where most of the cases end. These are
the courts where most of the people have
contact.
I urge the delegates in this Convention
to support the majority position and vote
against this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: There is left ap-
proximately seven minutes of the time as
extended. As far as the Chair has been
able to observe there are two persons de-
siring to speak in favor of the amendment,
both of whom have spoken before.
There are two delegates desiring to
speak in opposition. The Chair will recog-
nize each of them, if they will keep their
time down to considerably less than three
minutes, otherwise all four cannot be
recognized.
For what purpose does Delegate Mitchell
rise?
DELEGATE MITCHELL: I would like
to speak in opposition to the amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Johnson and urges that he
confine his remarks to a minute or a minute
and a quarter.
DELEGATE JOHNSON: Thank you
very much, Mr. Chairman.
I should just like to answer my very
good friend, fellow member of my Commit-
tee, Delegate Hargrove. I read as many
constitutions as I could and supplemented
my research with information gathered by
the Convention staff and have answers to
the following questions: First, what states
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