Dear Editor,
Supporters of the Kansas Supreme Court retention suggest that voters should vote to retain all of the judges on the Kansas Supreme Court. They say that the justices are neither incompetent or corrupt.
They’re forgetting something.
In 2006. then Justice Lawton Nuss conferred with Senators Steve Morris and Pete Brungardt regarding a school finance court case pending before the Kansas Supreme Court. This is a serious violation of judicial ethics. As a result of this conversation, Justice Nuss became the first Kansas Supreme Court justice admonished by the Commission on Judicial Qualifications.
It doesn’t take a lawyer to tell you that a judge cannot visit with one party to a lawsuit behind closed doors. It is reprehensible that a Kansas Supreme Court Justice should provide such a poor example for other judges.
However, Chief Justice Nuss emerged relatively unscathed. Unscathed. because the Disciplinary Board is appointed by members of the Kansas Supreme Court. Justice Nuss was just admonished by the Commission on Judicial Qualifications. He was simply warned without the Kansas Supreme Court taking any real disciplinary action.
But this is not the only action that voters can take this November.
David Alan
Wichita