With the departure of state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery and the coming retirement of Chief Justice Ronald Castille, Pennsylvanians will get a brief look at a better way of selecting judges for the state's appeals courts.

In Pennsylvania, appellate court judges are elected in partisan statewide races. But when there is a court vacancy, the governor will nominate candidates who then must win confirmation by two-thirds vote in the Senate. The new judge serves until the next statewide judicial election, when anyone can run for the seat.This temporary way of filling vacancies has great advantages over electing judges.It spares would-be judges from having to raise huge amounts of campaign money. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed special interests to secretly funnel money into campaigns, judicial elections are becoming highly polarized, hotly partisan, multimillion-dollar battles between business interests and trial lawyers and their political allies."The increase in the expense of judicial elections has just been astronomical and it's only going to get worse," said Suzanne Almeida, program director with Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, which advocates a merit selection process for judges.That huge flood of money will be especially troubling next year, when Pennsylvania will have a statewide vote for three Supreme Court seats that were temporarily filled by appointment.It's getting to the point that courthouses where elected justices work may as well start posting signs, "Justice for sale, inquire within."The second part of Pennsylvania's rules for temporary judicial appointments requiring the two-thirds vote in the Senate delivers another important benefit. It forces a governor to steer clear of controversial, extremely liberal or extremely conservative choices.The current turmoil on the state Supreme Court highlights the need for Pennsylvania to shift from judicial elections to a merit selection for judges. Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts has, with one significant addition, a good multistep blueprint for reform.The group wants to see potential judicial appointees screened by a bipartisan statewide commission with lawyers and nonlawyers, some of whom are selected by elected officials. The panel would forward five names to the governor, who would pick one, subject to confirmation by the Senate. After four years, voters would be asked whether to retain the judge. Every 10 years from there, the judge would face another retention election.That blueprint needs one key improvement: The Senate confirmation vote should require a supermajority. That will almost always require getting votes from the minority party, which will help prevent the dominant party from ramming through a well-connected hack.Shifting to any system of merit selection for judges will require an amendment to Pennsylvania's constitution. To do that, an identically worded change must pass in two consecutive Legislatures and then be ratified in a statewide vote.That's a huge hurdle but it's one Pennsylvania voters should demand, if they want a court system where justice is not for sale to multimillion-dollar special interests.PennLive.com