The race Md. voters don’t pay much attention to — and why they should

It’s election season in Maryland and voters are getting barraged with ads about the various congressional races, and, if they’re really engaged, local school board and other races, too.

Judicial races, however, rarely make news and don’t get much attention. Leaders in Prince George’s County say that’s starting to become a problem.

Most of the time, circuit court judges go through what they’ll describe as a rigorous and transparent vetting process. It starts with a 40-page application that looks at an applicant’s background, finances and professional and personal backgrounds. A series of interviews is conducted after that, and if they make it out of those committees, they’ll interview with the governor, who has the final say in the appointment.

Then, they take the bench, but they still have to go before voters, who also get their say. And those judges can be challenged by anyone who has also passed the bar exam to become a lawyer and is willing to pay a small filing fee to get on the ballot.

Right now, voters are asked to select four judges at the polls, but Prince George’s County voters have five candidates to pick from — the four judges and a challenger. In recent years, challengers have had success ousting one of the vetted judges and taking a 15-year term on the bench.

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“Experience matters because it breeds trust,” said Cheri Nicole Simpkins, one of the judges on the ballot. “It breeds trust in the judiciary.”

She also said it’s important to have someone who knows the law and will treat people with respect in the courtroom.

Just this week, Maryland’s highest court tossed a recently elected judge off the bench, citing “egregious” behavior that violated numerous codes of conduct for judges. The high court said April Ademiluyi violated several rules, including those pertaining to impartiality, interactions with jurors, demeanor and competence.

The four sitting judges running to be retained, Donnell Turner, Darren Johnson, Stenise Rolle and Simpkins couldn’t comment on that particular case, but during their campaign have made experience an issue, as they face a challenge from a lawyer named Michael Sheehan, who got on the ballot by paying the filing fee, as did Ademiluyi.

“The public should know that whoever is appointed by the governor ultimately has our character, our integrity, our temperament, our experience, our background, all of those things have been put on full display and have been examined by Bar Associations, have been examined by the governor’s own judicial nominating commission,” Turner said. “So we’re an open book, unlike someone who pays $50 to get on the ballot.”

Johnson said, based on the few interactions he’s had with Sheehan, he doesn’t believe Sheehan is qualified to be on the circuit court.

“You can hide that from the public, because they don’t do too much digging when it comes to judges and we are restricted in even sort of participating vigorously with the community when we’re not during election season,” said Johnson. “We’re not a group of inexperienced individuals who put our name in the hat, hoping that people didn’t do their research, and just check a name off on the box.”

Johnson said the four current judges each came to the bench with decades of experience, while Sheehan graduated law school and passed the bar all within the last five years. From what they can tell, he has little or no circuit court experience.

WTOP spoke with Sheehan on the phone earlier this week, and he ultimately declined to speak about the election, saying by text message that he was too busy for an interview. However he did say in his text that “regardless of whatever the sitting said about me, I think they’re very fine people and I wish them all the best.”

“We have an opponent who is not transparent at all — who’s essentially been hiding in the shadows,” Turner said.

Earlier, Sheehan told Streetcar Suburbs News that he was a progressive running against judges appointed by former Gov. Larry Hogan.

“If you know what the circuit court does, we handle serious felony criminal cases, we handle family cases, large claim civil cases, as well,” Rolle said. “Those are some very, very serious cases that we have to handle — serious issues that we must decide. And we need to make sure the person who is deciding those issues is qualified and at least knowledgeable and have some base level of understanding as what they’re doing there on the bench.”

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