Topeka ? Earlier this month, Gov. Bill Graves had a news conference to name Lawrence resident Robert Gernon to the Kansas Supreme Court.

It was Graves’ last judicial appointment before he leaves office in January, and, like his 54 previous selections, the appointee was white.

After eight years of filling court vacancies, Graves has not named one black or Hispanic candidate to be a magistrate, district court judge, state appeals court judge or justice on the Kansas Supreme Court.

“This must stop,” said William Richards Sr., president of the Topeka chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Kansas is predominantly white, but minorities already make up about 17 percent of the state population, and that percentage is increasing because some ethnic groups are the fastest-growing segments of the population.

Richards, an 81-year-old veteran of three wars and a civil rights advocate who has worked in the administrations of several Kansas governors, says he does not want to be confrontational about the issue, but it’s time to get more minorities in judicial positions.

Joyce McCray Pearson, a Kansas University law professor, said she was stunned at news of the lack of black and Hispanic judicial appointments. She said it would motivate her to start contacting groups, such as the Kansas Supreme Court Nominating Commission.

White commission

The nominating commission takes applications for court appointments, then provides the governor with a list of two or three names to pick from. The commission members are all white, and in the latest round of taking applications for three vacancies on the Kansas Supreme Court, they provided no minority nominees for Graves to consider.

“It’s important that blacks, Hispanics, Asians and women – that there be a diverse group represented in the judiciary. We now have to mobilize to make sure about who is on the nominating commission and make sure we are informed on who to contact,” said Pearson, also director of the KU law library.

In Douglas County, no district judges are members of minority groups. In Wyandotte County, where 28 percent of the population is black, there is one black district judge out of 16. In Finney County, where 43 percent of the population is Hispanic, there are no Hispanic district judges. And in Shawnee County, the seat of state government and where 18 percent of the population is black or Hispanic, there are no black or Hispanic district judges. The state doesn’t collect statewide figures on the racial and ethnic breakdown of the judiciary.

Dennis Harwick, executive director of the Kansas Bar Assn., says more minorities are needed in the judiciary to maintain the credibility of the justice system.

Appearance, reality

“That’s not to say majority people can’t dispense fair and equal justice, but I do think one of the elements of credibility is the look and feel of a justice system,” Harwick said. “The appearance of being fair is an element of justice, and that appearance in part is driven by whether it seems there is a group of peers.”

Some advocates for judicial reform have noted that studies show that with a predominantly white judiciary, minorities receive harsher prison sentences than white defendants. Harwick said that was especially true in death penalty cases.

But many in the legal community say it’s difficult in Kansas to find members of minority groups who want to be judges.

Of Graves’ 55 judicial appointments, his office said he was given the name of only one black judge from the lists provided him from various nominating commissions.

Richard Hite of Wichita, chairman of the Supreme Court Nominating Commission, said he didn’t recall any black judges submitting applications out of the approximately 30 people who applied for the recent three openings on the Kansas Supreme Court.

He says he knows from personal experience in his own law firm that it is difficult to retain minority attorneys in Kansas.

Few overall

“Members of minorities are highly sought after, and I suspect that a lot of them are hired by out-of-state, big law firms. We have had Hispanics in our firm and lost them to other firms,” Hite said.

The pool of minority attorneys is small. Though the state doesn’t keep statistics on the racial and ethnic breakdown of Kansas’ 12,257 registered lawyers, a look at the state’s major law schools finds few minority students.

KU has 540 students in the law school. Of that total, 29 are Hispanic; 22, Asian; 20, black; and 10, American Indian, and four are multiracial. Washburn University’s law school in Topeka has 451 students, including 25 blacks and 15 Hispanics.

Richards said it might be that blacks are failing to apply or they’re not applying because they aren’t getting selected. But, he said, “I feel this issue needs to be raised.”