As long as it is tempered by wisdom and compassion, there is nothing quite like experience when you are looking for a judge.
That is the first consideration when you evaluate the contestants for a judge on a trial bench like the Pulaski Circuit Court.
That is where our judgment finally rested when we examined the candidates for two circuit judgeships who will be on the ballot at the party primaries next Tuesday. (Judges must now run non-partisan races, and the same candidates will appear on the ballot at Republican and Democratic precincts.)
Our recommendation is Judge Mary Ann McGowan for the Ninth Division and Cathi Compton for the Eleventh Division, although there are other excellent candidates.
Judge McGowan has been the Ninth Division judge for 18 years, which for the past dozen years has been an experimental drug court while also handling the usual run of trial cases. Her conduct of the court formed the template for drug-court programs across the state.
A good word for this judge is tough. We remember last year when the Arkansas Supreme Court was willing to let Pulaski County officials slide by without releasing the computer email records of the crook who was running the county’s finances. No, Judge McGowan said, taxpayers are entitled to know about them. The justices then backtracked and affirmed her and we learned the full extent of the shenanigans in the county comptroller’s office.
McGowan has been known to be abrupt with attorneys who she thinks come to court unprepared and short with bureaucrats who haven’t done their work on mental-health cases. Now she is opposed by a young lawyer, Cecily Patterson Skarda, who experienced unpleasantness as an advocate in Judge McGowan’s court. She says judicial canons require Judge McGowan to be considerate of lawyers in the courtroom and that the judge sometimes is not. In time, Skarda might make a good judge, too, but we would rather not take a chance or wait upon her seasoning.
The race for Division 11 is harder. None of the three candidates — Cathi Compton, Jewel “Cricket” Harper and Melinda Gilbert — is a sitting judge but all are experienced trial lawyers and have the requisite interest in children. The court deals almost exclusively with juvenile cases.
You can take your choice and not go wrong but we lean to Compton because she has an edge in years and breadth of her experience. She chaired the first Arkansas Public Defender Commission.
So we recommend Judge Mary Ann McGowan for Ninth Division judge and Cathi Compton for Eleventh Division judge.
