Two applicants for the vacant Nome Superior Court judge position will appear before the Alaska Judicial Council in Nome next week for public interviews and a public hearing.
The vacancy was created by the resignation of Superior Court Judge Romano DiBenedetto. Three attorneys, Elisabeth Mering, John Revis and Nicholas Adam Defreitas initially applied for the position, but Defreitas withdrew his application before the evaluation process was completed.
Mering has lived in Alaska and practiced law for nine years. She graduated from Portland’s Lewis & Clark School and currently serves as a Tribal Child Welfare Program Manager with the Bethel-based nonprofit tribal consortium Association of Village Council Presidents.
Revis has lived in Alaska for 35 years and practiced law for seven years. He is a graduate of the University of Idaho College of Law and runs the private practice, Revis Law Group, out of Wasilla.
The candidates will be interviewed by the council shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 18 at the Katirvik Cultural Center in Nome. Following the private interviews the meeting will open up to a public hearing.
“The council is interested in hearing from the public anything that they would like to say about the two people who’ve applied,” the council’s Executive Director, Susanne DiPietro, said.
DiPietro said the council also welcomes comments about “the qualities or skills and abilities that they would like to see in their new superior court judge.”
Following the public hearing, the seven-member council will go into an executive session to deliberate the candidates. The council will then reconvene publicly to vote on whether each applicant meets the constitutional standard of being “most qualified.”
Because only two applicants remain, both must be nominated for the appointment process to continue. Should one or both candidates be deemed unqualified, the process will start over.
If both applicants are nominated, their names will be sent to the governor within a few days of the council’s vote. The governor then has 45 days to appoint one of the nominees, DiPietro said. The appointed judge will later stand for retention at the first general election held more than three years after the appointment and, if retained, every six years afterward.
What their colleagues had to say
As part of its evaluation, the Judicial Council surveys Alaska Bar Association members who have professional experience with the applicants. Attorneys are asked to rate applicants on professional competence, integrity, fairness, judicial temperament, suitability of experience and overall qualifications.
According to a technical report prepared by the University of Alaska Anchorage, attorneys gave Mering an average overall rating of 4.0 on a scale between one and five, compared with 2.7 for Revis. Mering also received higher average ratings in each of the five individual evaluation categories.
The council also considers factors beyond the survey, including the needs of the community where the vacancy exists.
“They look at the location of the vacancy, a rural versus an urban vacancy,” DiPietro said. “There might be different qualities that a person should have to be a successful judge in rural Alaska.”
By the time the investigation is complete, DiPietro said a “whole binder” is assembled on each candidate.
This year’s Nome meeting also marks a change in venue. Rather than meeting in the courthouse, the council decided to begin holding meetings in community facilities when possible, leading to the selection of the Katirvik Cultural Center for the public hearing and interviews.
The public portion of the meeting will begin at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the Katirvik Cultural Center. Members of the public may attend in person or participate by Zoom. KNOM will also livestream the meeting.
