SACRAMENTO — One of every four judges appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson contributed to his gubernatorial campaign in amounts as high as $4,000 before being named, a Times review of Wilson's campaign records shows.

Altogether, 17 of the 65 men and women whom Wilson placed on the bench or elevated to a higher court through April gave him campaign money, according to the records.

The governor's advisers insist that the payments have no impact on Wilson's choice of judges--appointments that will affect the administration of justice in California long after Wilson has left office.

"Campaign contributions have absolutely no effect on the selection process," said Wilson's communications director, Dan Schnur. "Judgeships are not for sale."

The Times looked at the contributions of Wilson's judicial appointees after making a similar check of former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. As a Democratic presidential candidate, Brown has said that sizable contributions from special interests have corrupted the political process in America.

A Times analysis of Brown's records last month showed that 118 of the men and women appointed to the bench in his second term contributed to his political campaign committees--about a fifth of those he named to the bench between 1979 and 1983.

Brown also denied that there was any link between contributions and judicial appointments. Wilson did not respond to requests for interviews on the subject of his appointments.

Yet the review of political contributions to both governors is a reminder that California remains one of a dwindling number of states in which judgeships are part of the political patronage dispensed by chief executives. The governor fills almost all vacancies on the bench. Once appointed, judges rarely face opposition in elections intended to serve as a check on the system of political appointments.

The last effort in California to shift the appointment authority from the governor to an appointed commission--a proposal that was backed by some of the state's leading jurists as well as the California State Bar--died in the 1960s, blocked by those who said they preferred partisan politics to the politics of lawyers and bar associations.

In recent years, however, a number of states have moved to limit their governors' discretion in the naming of judges.