Cyrus Dugger

Is justice for sale in Georgia?

Here’s a great op-ed from the Fulton Daily Report:

Is justice for sale in Georgia? Just how much does a state Supreme Court justice go for these days? Is $3 million enough? Hopefully not. In 2004, state judicial candidates across America raised a record $46.8 million—more than double the amount in 1994. But how much it costs to run for a state Supreme Court isn’t the most troubling question. We should be asking: who’s writing the checks and why?

The Safety and Prosperity Coalition (SPC), a so-called “independent committee,” has just disclosed a $1.3 million contribution from American Justice Partnership (AJP), a Washington, D.C.-based Political Action Committee. “Partners” listed on AJP’s website include the American Enterprise Institute, the American Tort Reform Association, the Manhattan Institute, and the Southeastern Legal Foundation—all deceptively named organizations with a shared goal: dismantling the judicial system our founders established to protect American fairness and democracy.

Other major contributors to the SPC include Liberty Mutual Insurance Company of Dover, N.H.; State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company of Bloomington, Ill.; Fireman’s Fund of Novato, Calif.; Ace Insurance of Richmond, Ind.; and the American Insurance Association in Atlanta. Political insiders speculate that the Republican Party plans to kick in $1 million before the final score is tallied on Nov. 7—bringing the total raised by Safety and Prosperity to $3 million.

Why are all these out-of-state interests pouring money into our Supreme Court election? What do they stand to gain by securing laws and judges that protect private interests over equal justice? Why might they spawn organizations with paradoxical names like Safety and Prosperity Coalition, American Justice Partnership and Southeastern Legal Institute to cloak their real agenda?

“When you have interest groups pouring millions and millions of dollars into elections, the impression people get is that judges can be bought and that justice can be bought,” says Michael Greco, president of the American Bar Association. “The damage that does to the people’s confidence in a fair judiciary is incalculable.”

“State court elections have traditionally been sleepy affairs, as decorum dictated that candidates remain above the fray of partisan politics,” reported U.S. News & World Report [Judicial elections turn expensive, polarized, and nasty, June 16]. “Over the last several years, state judicial campaigns have become high-stakes political battles—expensive, polarized, and, at times, nasty.”

In Georgia, the Supreme Court race is being described as “one of the most bitter battles of Georgia’s election season.” Last week, Shannon L. Goessling, director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), one of AJP’s “partners,” defended the escalating acrimony as “free speech” [Free Speech: Keep politics in high court race, Oct. 26].

To be sure, free speech is a foundational tenet and a precious right guaranteed to every American citizen. But in my book, dirty politics and free speech are not the same. Free speech is tempered by laws against fraud, defamation, slander, and libel; free speech is tempered by codes of moral and ethical behavior; and free speech is tempered by simple rules of conduct, respect and common decency.

Dirty politics, on the other hand, employs fear-mongering, finger-wagging, name-calling, word-twisting, and truth-bending. Dirty politics is about smoke and mirrors, “money and vitriol,” not about promoting “vigorous campaigns” or ensuring “a fully informed electorate.” Dirty politics is about advancing (at any cost) the interests of the few over the interests of the many.

We have seen these tactics in other states when big bucks and camouflaged special-interest groups joined forces to cast out good judges by painting them as “unfriendly,” “activist,” “liberal” or “soft on crime.”

We saw the clouds gathering in Georgia last summer when these same special-interest coalitions started setting up camps and shopping for a candidate. But Georgia’s media, Georgia’s lawyers (and we hope, Georgia’s voters) won’t be so easily hornswoggled. We know that, to remain fair and impartial, our judges must keep their hands clean. And we know that clean hands and dirty politics don’t mix.

Maybe the American Bar Association is right. Maybe public-funded judicial elections are the only way to preserve the integrity, impartiality, and independence of our state judicial systems.

But for now, let me just say this: here in Georgia we know dirty politics when we see it. And we sure as shooting know the difference between snake oil and free speech.

Irwin Stolz is a former judge on the Court of Appeals of Georgia, former president of the State Bar of Georgia, and a practicing attorney in Athens, Clark County, Georgia.