Selection of Presiding Judges

Joseph L. Donnelly, Special Counsel, and Thomas D. McBride, Attorney General,

Your office has asked us to set forth the rules to be applied by your department in determining who shall be commissioned as the presiding judge of a court of the Commonwealth comprising more than one judge when a vacancy occurs.

The questions raised by this inquiry, by and large, are common to all judges of courts of record within the Commonwealth. Excluding the minor judiciary, the Pennsylvania judicial system encompasses seven classes of judges, namely, the judges of the Supreme Court, the Superior Court, the…