Simply Politics & News

[sarals]

Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court’s Rulings

<< corruption, corruption, corruption.. are we all disgusted yet??? had enough??? >>

By ADAM LIPTAK and JANET ROBERTS
Published: October 1, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the fall of 2004, Terrence O’Donnell, an affable judge with the placid good looks of a small-market news anchor, was running hard to keep his seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. He was also considering two important class-action lawsuits that had been argued many months before.

Justice Terrence O’Donnell, a Republican member of the Ohio Supreme Court, voted in favor of his contributors 91 percent of the time, the highest rate of any member. He said it was “misleading” to link case outcomes to contributions.

Judge William O’Neill, a Democrat on the 11th District Court of Appeals, is challenging Justice O’Donnell, running on the slogan “No money from nobody.” Justice O’Donnell has raised more than $3 million in campaign money since 2000.
In the weeks before the election, Justice O’Donnell’s campaign accepted thousands of dollars from the political action committees of three companies that were defendants in the suits. Two of the cases dealt with defective cars, and one involved a toxic substance. Weeks after winning his race, Justice O’Donnell joined majorities that handed the three companies significant victories.

Justice O’Donnell’s conduct was unexceptional. In one of the cases, every justice in the 4-to-3 majority had taken money from affiliates of the companies. None of the dissenters had done so, but they had accepted contributions from lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Thirty-nine states elect judges, and 30 states are holding elections for seats on their highest courts this year. Spending in these races is skyrocketing, with some judges raising $2 million or more for a single campaign. As the amounts rise, questions about whether money is polluting the independence of the judiciary are being fiercely debated across the nation. And nowhere is the battle for judicial seats more ferocious than in Ohio.

An examination of the Ohio Supreme Court by The New York Times found that its justices routinely sat on cases after receiving campaign contributions from the parties involved or from groups that filed supporting briefs. On average, they voted in favor of contributors 70 percent of the time. Justice O’Donnell voted for his contributors 91 percent of the time, the highest rate of any justice on the court.

In the 12 years that were studied, the justices almost never disqualified themselves from hearing their contributors’ cases. In the 215 cases with the most direct potential conflicts of interest, justices recused themselves just 9 times.

Even sitting justices have started to question the current system. “I never felt so much like a hooker down by the bus station in any race I’ve ever been in as I did in a judicial race,” said Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, a Republican member of the Ohio Supreme Court. “Everyone interested in contributing has very specific interests.”

“They mean to be buying a vote,” Justice Pfeifer added. “Whether they succeed or not, it’s hard to say.”

Three recent cases, two in Illinois and one in West Virginia, have put the complaints in sharp focus. Elected justices there recently refused to disqualify themselves from hearing suits in which tens or hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake. The defendants were insurance, tobacco and coal companies whose supporters had spent millions of dollars to help elect the justices.

After a series of big-money judicial contests around the nation, the balance of power in several state high courts has tipped in recent years in favor of corporations and insurance companies.

In the 2002 Ohio judicial election, for example, two candidates won seats that year on the seven-member court after each raised more money than one of the candidates for governor that year.

Corporate Giving Increases

Judges are required by codes of judicial ethics to disqualify themselves whenever their impartiality might reasonably be questioned over financial or other conflicts. Even owning a few shares of stock in a defendant’s company or seeing a relative’s name on a brief generally requires automatic disqualification.

But there is an exception to this strict rule: campaign contributions. Very few judges in the states that elect the members of their highest court view contributions as a reason for disqualification when those contributors appear before them.

Many judges said contributions were so common that recusal would wreak havoc on the system. The standard in the Ohio Supreme Court, its chief justice, Thomas J. Moyer, said, is to recuse only if “sitting on the case is going to be perceived as just totally unfair.”

Duane J. Adams, a plaintiff in one of the class-action suits heard by Justice O’Donnell, concerning defective cars, said he questioned the impartiality of the justices who ruled against him. Mr. Adams had sued DaimlerChrysler under the state’s lemon law, and he grew angry when told that the company’s political action committee had given money to justices in the majority.

continued...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/us/01judges.html?hp&ex=1159761600&en=eb4c4da418c95a09&...