July 7, 2006 – With the territory's plans for a V.I. Supreme Court still in the works, Gov. Charles Turnbull revealed this week that he will nominate three judges with Superior Court experience to serve on the panel. The three are: Judges Ive Swan, Maria Cabret and Rhys Hodge.
Swan, who was confirmed last week by the Legislature to a six-year Superior Court term, has served 19 years on the bench.
Cabret, who retired last week after 19 years on the Superior Court bench, spent seven of those years as presiding judge.
Meanwhile Hodge, who was tapped last week to replace Cabret as the Superior Court's chief judge, has served since 2000. "I'm looking forward to it," Hodge said Thursday.
Hodge, the only judge who could be reached for comment, said getting the court established was a big task.
The governor placed a paid notice in a local newspaper announcing his intention to submit the three names to the Legislature.
According to the V.I. law creating the Supreme Court, passed on Sept. 30, 2004, Turnbull is required to post the announcement.
The bill indicates that the court shall have a chief justice and two associate justices, who will serve 10-year terms and may be reappointed. The chief justice, who is elected by his fellow Supreme Court judges, serves in that capacity for a three-year term. The chief justice may not serve successive terms.
The chief justice gets paid 15 percent more than the annual salary of the Superior Court's presiding judge. The others get paid $5,000 less than the chief justice.
They may not practice law while in office or accept any paying public appointments.
A bill remains in the Senate to appropriate $650,000 from the General Fund to construct a Supreme Court building and $1.6 million to establish the court.
At issue, however, is whether the court will be located on St. Thomas or St. Croix. Although the original bill initially placed the court on St. Thomas, an amendment attached to the funding bill by Sen. Ronald Russell moved the Supreme Court to St. Croix.
Russell and his colleagues also overrode Turnbull's veto of an earlier bill placing the court on St. Croix.
Hodge said he wasn't going to get caught up in discussion about the court's location. "The key thing is to get it started without any big distractions," he said.
Proponents of the Supreme Court have indicated that setting up an appellate court is another step toward reducing federal involvement in the territory's affairs. Currently, cases in V.I. Superior Court are appealed to U.S. District Court.
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