Maryland Injury Law Center
The Maryland Daily Record follows up on an interesting story that I first saw in Washington Post editorial back in August. Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, Maryland Court of Appeals judges have a mandatory retirement age of 70. Three judges – Dale R. Cathell, Irma S. Raker, and Alan M. Wilner – will retire during the next governor’s term. This means that approximately 43% of the court will change by the next governor. [2017 Note: these judges left, but they never left. They still sit on the court as frequent replacements, probably something I should have considered more when I wrote this. Oh, to be a young court watcher!]
Also, unlike the Supreme Court, the Maryland Court of Appeals has been free of vitriolic ideological warfare that has long defined the Supreme Court in the modern era. This is probably because the issues a state court faces rarely radiate core political beliefs and values the way Supreme Court decisions so often do.
Still, it is impossible to deny that judges nominated by either Baltimore City Mayor Martin O’Malley, or Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan will select judges expected to be more likely (I’m trying hard to qualify this statement, as you can see) to choose personal injury victims over insurance companies than judges selected by Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.