April 27, 2010
BLACK AND PUERTO RICAN CAUCUS STATEMENT
ON JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS
The members of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus of the Connecticut General Assembly appreciate Governor Rell's statement of commitment to appoint a qualified historically underrepresented minority to the bench. We believe that a transparent process is necessary for the fair selection of judges in the State of Connecticut. The current judicial selection process, unfortunately, has proven incapable of meeting this goal.
The recent hearings held by the Judiciary Committee show that there is a great deal of work to be done to meet those goals. The process employed by the Judicial Selection Commission as well as its composition needs to dramatically change to better reflect and serve the people of Connecticut.
There are currently 187 judges of the Supreme, Appellate and Superior Court.1 The table below displays their racial and ethnic breakdown.
White |
African-American |
Hispanic |
Pacific Islander/Asian-American |
160 (85.6%) |
20 (10.7%) |
5 (2.7%) |
2 (1.1%) |
Of these judges, 130 or 69.5% were male and 57 or 30.5% were female.
Members of the Caucus have expressed concern that the ethnic and racial composition of the bench is not reflective of our diverse state population. Our commitment is to seek remedy for, and support measures, which work to rectify this situation.
1 This figure does not include senior judges or state referees.