DENVER—Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter will be leaving office next week with a hefty legacy on the state’s judicial system.
He appointed 112 state and county judges in his one term, The (Colorado Springs) Gazette reported Saturday. That was nearly as many as a previous governor appointed in two terms.
Ritter also appointed more women and more public defenders to the bench than his Republican predecessor, former Gov. Bill Owens. Yet Owens appointed more judges overall: 174 over his two terms.
Former Gov. Roy Romer appointed 114 over two terms.
Ritter was formerly the district attorney for Denver. He told The Gazette that he took seriously his job appointing judges.
“It can be a legacy that’s as lasting as anything you do,” he said last week.
Thirty-five percent of Ritter’s appointees were women, compared to 30 percent appointed by Owens during his two terms, The Gazette reported.
Lucy Denson, president of the Colorado Women’s Bar Association, lauded Ritter’s choices, including the appointment of a woman to the Colorado Supreme Court.
“The bench needs to reflect the community,” Denson said. “There are jurisdictions where women are a significant minority on the bench and do not reflect the proportion of practicing women attorneys.”
The gender breakdown of Ritter’s appointments was close to the gender balance in the Colorado Bar Association. Female lawyers make up about 32 percent of the association, which represents about 75 percent of all Colorado lawyers.
Despite his background, Ritter didn’t favor former prosecutors. About 43 percent of Ritter’s appointees had previous experience as prosecutors, compared to nearly 50 percent for Owens.
The two also differed with appointees who had been public defenders. Owens appointed four such judges in eight years, compared to 15 by Ritter.
Ritter picked 36 candidates with prior judicial experience, either as magistrates or municipal or county judges. He appointed two non-lawyers to the bench, both to county court judgeships in rural parts of the state.
Matthew Arnold, director of Clear the Bench, which ran an unsuccessful campaign to oust three state Supreme Court judges, said he was less interested in the demographics of judicial appointment than in their judicial philosophy.
“From what I’ve seen of Ritter, by and large, he’s made some pretty decent appointments,” said Arnold, referring more to Ritter’s choices for the court of appeals than the lower courts.
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Information from: The Gazette,
