Is the selection process designed to assure that only the most qualified candidates will be selected?
Steele : Our system is merit-based with one caveat. We have a governor-appointed commission called the Judicial Nominating Commission. When a vacancy occurs in one of our courts, anyone who is a member of the Delaware Bar can apply for that vacancy, even if the vacancy occurs when a sitting judge’s term expires. The Judicial Nominating Commission takes those applications, screens them and determines how many of those applicants they will interview for that vacancy. At the end of that process, the Commission is charged with sending to the governor a list of no fewer than three and no more than five names of candidates to fill the vacancy. Those names are first vetted by the 25 members of the Judicial Appointments Committee of the Delaware State Bar Association who comment on those names as highly qualified, qualified or unqualified. The governor gets all that information. Since 1978, the governor has nominated an individual to fill the vacancy from that list, and only from that list. Th
