Qualifications: What training, experience and characteristics qualify you for this position?
ETHICS: How will you ensure your rulings remain impartial and free from both political pressure and the interests of your campaign donors?
ISSUES: What do you see as the most pressing challenge facing the courts today, and how would you propose addressing it?
PHILOSOPHY: What is your judicial philosophy?
John Messinger
Representing Texas in this court has been my job for 15 years. Few people have comparable experience: over 125 petitions for review, over 100 briefs, and 26 oral arguments in this court alone.
We're blessed to be able to elect (and un-elect) judges. I have a long record of advocating for what the law requires, not what I would prefer. The voters will ensure that I keep my promise to continue enforcing the law as written.
Although the court has found many novel ways to reverse convictions in the last few years, the biggest problem is the time it takes. The average time it took the court to review a decision and issue an opinion was over 500 days last year. It used to be under 200. You fix this by electing people who've spent their careers analyzing complex legal issues in 30 days or less. That's me.
Justice through law enforcement. In a system of law, judges are not empowered to do whatever they think is fair or right in a given case. They must apply the law as written. If the law is properly interpreted and the result is not what the legislature intended, it is the legislature's job to rewrite the law. Judges should have the humility to accept their limited roles and limited wisdom.
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