Judicial Terms

Terms of Endearment? Initial appointments for appellate court judges vary dramatically across the states, ranging in length from one year to a life appointment. States that use merit selection methods typically appoint judges on a meritocratic basis for a short period of initial service. Judges then face retention elections in which the public votes to retain or remove them. Merit selection is today the most common method of selection. As more states consider judicial selection reform, some version of merit selection is often the reform of choice. Legislative or executive appointment is the least common selection method across the states, despite the national model of presidential appointment of federal judges. Many states still use judicial election, either partisan or nonpartisan, to select appellate judges. Texas elects all but Municipal judges in partisan elections.