BAR BACKS MERIT
If only this were the way law firm partners were chosen. The New York State Bar Association is calling for a constitutional amendment and a legislative act that would lay out a merit system for choosing judges. Yesterday, when the 72,000-member group brought their ideas to Albany, they insisted on “competence, independence, temperament and diversity.” The group wants dozens of screening panels to choose judges, the Albany Times Union reports. Since a constitutional change would require a minimum of three years to complete, the Bar is touting an interim plan with a significantly altered form of the current judicial convention system where, among other reforms, "candidates who petitioned onto the primary ballot would be assessed by a judicial screening panel, with the three who are most qualified being recommended." That interim solution reflects a growing spirit of compromise over judicial selection that was first reported in here in Judicial Reports.

JUSTICE DELAYED, AND THEN SOME
After 15 years in prison for a crime that DNA evidence now shows he didn’t commit, Roy Brown is finally free. But like many stories about vindication, his isn’t a very happy one. The details are grisly: Shortly after being released from prison on an assault charge, Brown was found guilty of stabbing a social worker to death and setting her house on fire. Through his own investigation, Brown was long convinced that a man named Barry Bench, a volunteer firefighter and brother of the victim’s boyfriend, had killed Sabina Kulakowski. Originally, DNA evidence had come from Bench’s daughter. But Cayuga County Judge Peter Corning said that wasn’t good enough. On Tuesday Brown was released after DNA tests from Bench’s exhumed body match evidence found at the crime scene, The New York Times reports. (Bench threw himself in front of an Amtrak train shortly after Brown wrote him a letter from prison accusing him of the crime.) Judge Mark Fandrich, who took over the case upon Judge Corning’s retirement, offered an apology: "I’m sorry it’s taken such a long time for you to come to this day,” Judge Fandrich said. “I’m happy for you and your family. Good luck to you, sir.” Brown seems a long way from luck. With no money and a liver disease that makes him look hollow and more than a little haunted, Brown became the eighth person to be exonerated through DNA evidence in New York State in the last year and a half.

JUDGE FOR THE PROSECUTION 
The witness box will look like the bench in the Clarence Norman trial, the Post declares. Jury selection in the trial of the former boss of the Brooklyn Dems kicked off yesterday. No fewer than seven Brooklyn judges are on the list of possible witnesses that the prosecution wants to bring. It’s the fourth go-around in court for the assemblyman-turned-professional political fixer, and this time the focus is on whether he threatened two Civil Court candidates with withdrawal of support from the political machine unless they refused to pony up for “preferred” election consultants. Look for our coverage later in the week.

GUNNING FOR BLOOMBERG
You can sue, but just try scaring the folks down in Virginia. The Daily News declares that the “Bloomberg Gun Give Away” is “a redneck's revenge for the mayor's campaign against them.” Angry about Mayor Bloomberg’s lawsuits against stores illegally selling handguns, customers at participating stores get a raffle ticket for every $100 they spend. Guess what the prize is? Yup. A brand new gun. “We are as legal as anyone can be," said Dave Hancock, coordinating manager for Bob Moates Sports Shop in Midlothian, which is hosting the raffle with Old Dominion Gun and Tackle in Danville. “We joked about filing a suit against him for all the drugs that come down from New York,” Hancock said. Bloomberg, true to form, called them “sick people.”