Lots of state elect, rather than appoint, their judges. Sandra Day O'Conner has been speaking out against this practice. Politics by Other Means explains why this is important.
"Last week, the chief justice of the state of New York announced a new rule for the state's judges. Henceforth, if a lawyer who has contributed more than $2,500 to one of the judge's campaigns is slated to argue a case before the judge, the case will have to be reassigned. This rule, said The New York Times, 'is believed to be the most restrictive in the country.' What's truly mind-boggling, though, is the idea that lawyers who argue cases would ever be allowed to do so in front of judges on whom they have showered cash. Isn't the very fact that we elect judges self-evidently corrupt enough already?"
"It's true that the ability to buy a judge is not completely without limits, as we found in a case called Caperton v. Massey, involving the notorious mining company Massey Energy. Massey had recently been hit with a $50 million verdict in a lawsuit heading for West Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals, so the company's chief, Don Blankenship, poured $3 million into the campaign of Brent Benjamin, a private attorney running for the first time, for chief justice in 2004. That amount was more than both campaigns spent combined. Benjamin ousted the sitting justice, and when the case reached the high court, Benjamin refused to recuse himself and cast the deciding vote in Massey's favor, tossing out the $50 million award. When the appeal reached the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court ruled that Benjamin should have recused himself. But what was so remarkable about the decision is that it wasn't 9-0 or 8-1 but 5-4. Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito -- the Court's conservative bloc -- actually thought it was OK for a judge to get $3 million from a defendant, then rule on that defendant's lawsuit."
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