Each of the three geographic districts of the Court of Appeals must be represented by one lawyer and one citizen member on the Appellate Judicial Commission.
These commissions are composed of the chief judge of the court of appeals district in which the circuit is located, plus two lawyers elected by the bar and two citizens selected by the governor.
An example of this advocacy is the merit selection program urged by Albert M. Kales in his work Unpopular Government in the United States (1914).
Missouri voters adopted the system by initiative petition in November 1940 after several very contentious judicial elections, which were heavily influenced by the political machine of Tom Pendergast.
[1] The plan was put forth by a committee chaired by Luther Ely Smith, "founder" of the Gateway Arch National Park.
[6] The Missouri Non-Partisan Court Plan has served as a model for thirty-four other states that use merit selection to fill some or all judicial vacancies.
The CJA holds a public meeting, and receives the report from the JNE Commission, then decides whether to confirm the nominee.
[citation needed] Better Courts for Missouri has argued that flaws in the current plan give elite trial lawyers too much control over judicial selection.
"[9] Professor Stephen Ware of the University of Kansas wrote about the Missouri Plan, "As the bar is an elite segment of society, states that give lawyers more power than their fellow citizens are rightly described as elitist.
[10]Elbert Walton, a disbarred lawyer and former Missouri State legislator, believed that the plan had a negative effect on African Americans.
Walton noted that no African American had ever been elected to one of the Missouri Bar's three slots on the Appellate Judicial Commission, though many have been appointed judges, and suggested that Mr. Harris "ought to be ashamed of himself" for supporting such a plan.
[13] Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee has criticized that state's version of the Missouri Plan for similar reasons.
The Wall Street Journal wrote "If the recent slugfests have proven anything, it's that Missouri's courts are every bit as hung up in politics as they are in other states.