|
My class at the University of Utah was the first after the end of World War II. We started in September 1945, just one month after the war ended in the Pacific. There were sixty of us,
fifty-nine men and one woman - Lucy Redd. By the time we graduated in the spring of 1948, there were only about thirty of us left, including Lucy. In that graduating class were also James
E. Faust, Glenn Hanni, Wilford Kirton, Earl Tanner, Maurice Richards, and Verl Ritchie, just to name a few.
Things were different in the law practice from what we do today. Our secretaries prepared letters and pleadings on a manual typewriter using carbon paper to create additional copies, which
were on legal-sized onion skin paper. One of my first appearances in court was before Third District Judge Albert H. Ellett, who granted my client a default divorce on a Saturday morning.
Up until the late 1950s, the courts, like all state offices, were open on Saturday until 1 p.m.
I often went to court on Wednesday morning when the probate calendar was heard. Attorneys who had written their clients' wills had to appear and give testimony to have the will admitted to
probate. Nearly all of the attorneys who came on Wednesday morning were older than me, and I learned to know them and admire them for their professionalism. At that time, the Third
District Court was housed in the City and County Building, and there were only six district judges. No trials were scheduled in July and August, since the building was not air-conditioned
and the judges took their vacations during those months.
One of the unexpected rewards of my law practice was the number of friends I made. Clients often come to lawyers at the client's time of need. When the lawyer guides them through the
crisis and a satisfactory solution is achieved, a bond forms. Some of my best friends today are former clients with whom I worked to solve problems which had arisen in their lives. Other
clients came under happy circumstances such as adopting a baby. There, I shared in their happiness in welcoming a long-awaited child into their home. Fellow lawyers also became good
friends.
As I look back on my fifty-four years as a member of the Bar, perhaps the most significant change for the better is the process by which judges in Utah are selected and retained in office.
This change started in 1944 when the Utah Constitution was amended to provide for the selection and election of judges solely on their merits and without regard to partisan affiliations.
This amendment was spearheaded by the Utah Bar Association with encouragement from the American Bar Association. Up until that time, judges in Utah ran for office as Democrats or
Republicans. Whether you were elected depended a good deal on whether you were of the same party as the presidential candidate who carried the state. From statehood until the time of
Woodrow Wilson's presidency, we had Republican presidents and Republican judges in Utah. When Woodrow Wilson came into office, Democratic judges were swept into office with him. In the
1920s, Republican presidents were again elected and also Republican judges. In 1932, with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, all of the Republican judges were swept out
of office and Democratic judges were elected. No judge had any hope of long tenure on the bench, and only the bravest would leave their law practices to gamble on gaining and keeping a
judgeship.
After the 1944 amendment, the Legislature experimented with different ways to select and elect judges. At first, the governor could appoint any member of the Bar. Nominating Commissions
which restrict the appointing power were to come later. Any lawyer could file to oppose an incumbent judge at election time. Finally, in the mid-1980s, the present retention election
system (Missouri Plan) was adopted.
The four years that I spent as chief justice afforded me the opportunity to meet and talk to justices of other states. It would never be long in our conversations before the subject of
judicial elections would come up. In some states, judges still run as Democrats and Republicans, and any lawyer can oppose them. In other states, judges run without party affiliation, but
any lawyer can run against them. In these states which have not adopted the Missouri Plan, an incumbent judge who is opposed for reelection must necessarily raise large amounts of
campaign money.
This money comes principally from lawyers and groups which frequently appear in the courts, such as business, medical, labor, agriculture groups, etc. A justice on the Texas Supreme Court
who was running for reelection about fifteen years ago told me that he had to raise a million dollars and buy television time in seventeen different markets in Texas. I'm sure today, the
amount required is much more than that one million dollars. With judges having to raise money to finance their reelection come many problems.
Public confidence in judges and the judiciary is eroded when judges have to resort to accepting campaign contributions. Not only does the running of a campaign take time and energy away
from a judge's judicial work, but it introduces suspicion about a judge's biases and favoritism. Every lawyer who takes his client into a court in a state where contested elections are
still held must always wonder whether the lawyer's opponent, and perhaps the opponent's client, has contributed to the judge's last campaign. It would seem that a lawyer who practices
frequently in the courts in those states would need to make a contribution to every judge's campaign fund and hope that the amount would not be overshadowed by the amount given by future
opponents in that court.
Contested elections and campaign contributions to judges create many ethical issues. Several times each year, national conferences are held to try to come to some consensus as to whether
limits should be put on the amount of contributions a judge can accept and what restraint, if any, should be on a judge in responding to his or her opponent's criticism of the judge's
record.
Fortunately, in Utah, we do not have these issues to deal with. The public is well served by our present retention election system where voters decide whether to retain a judge in office,
free from partisan labels and campaign contributions. Utah judges can concentrate on their work without the worry of raising campaign funds. More importantly, public trust and confidence
in the judiciary is not eroded by the knowledge that the judge before whom your case is tried has accepted campaign contributions from many sources. Utah's system is the best. It should
not be compromised or altered.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Justice Richard C. Howe retired from the Utah Supreme Court at the end of the year, following decades of service to the citizens of Utah. The Utah Bar Journal congratulates Justice Howe on his long and distinguished career and wishes him health and happiness in his retirement. We are pleased that he was willing to share these parting observations with our readers, and take this opportunity to highlight a few of his accomplishments.
Justice Howe was born January 20, 1924, in South Cottonwood, Utah. He was educated in the schools of the Granite School District, graduating from Granite High School in 1941. He went on
to graduate from the University of Utah in 1945, earning a B.S. degree in speech. He obtained his J.D. degree from the University of Utah College of Law in 1948. He was admitted to
practice law in Utah in 1949. His first employment was as a law clerk to Chief Justice James H. Wolfe of the Utah Supreme Court, followed by appointment as judge in the Murray City Court
from 1951-52. He then established a private law practice in Salt Lake County which lasted until 1980. While his practice was general in nature, he concentrated on real property sales and
conveyances, title problems, and probate practice.
Elected as a Democrat, he served for twelve years in the Utah House of Representatives (1951-58) and (1969-72), where he became Speaker of the House for the 1971-72 session. He was
minority leader in the 1957-58 session. Elected to the Utah Senate in 1972, he served there until 1978. He was assistant minority leader in the 1973-74 session. During his eighteen years
in the House and Senate, he served on every major committee. He introduced and sponsored legislation to adopt the Model Business Corporations Act and the Model Criminal Code, and
legislation to establish a Judicial Council and Court Administrator in Utah. He sponsored the Circuit Court Act, which replaced City Courts with a state court of record, the Circuit
Court, and made City Judges members of the state judiciary.
Justice Howe was one of the original members of the Salt Lake County Merit Council, where he served for nine years and became its chairman. He also served as an examiner for the Utah
State Bar and became chairman of the Examiners Committee. He served for ten years (1977 to 1986) as a member of the Utah Constitutional Revision Commission.
In 1980, he was appointed a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court by Governor Scott M. Matheson. He served as Associate Chief Justice for eight years, and in April 1998, he was elected by
his colleagues to a four-year term as Chief Justice. He retired from the Court, where his legal career had begun over fifty years earlier, on December 31, 2002.
He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Conference of Chief Justices and was appointed last year by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to the Advisory Committee on the
Rules of Appellate Procedure of the United States Judicial Conference, where he will continue to serve. He was made an Honorary member of the Order of the Coif at both the University of
Utah and Brigham Young University law schools. He and his wife Juanita are the parents of three sons and three daughters and grandparents of eighteen grandchildren. He has been active in
his church and in civic affairs, and is an accomplished gardener. Those who have enjoyed his renowned sweet corn in summers past sincerely hope that his retirement will not extend to his
avocation as an urban farmer.
|
