Reporting from Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court put elected judges on notice Monday that they must step aside from deciding cases involving big-money donors who helped them win their jobs.
The decision comes after a decade in which corporate interests and trial lawyers have waged increasingly costly campaigns for 21 states' supreme court seats. Most are in the Great Lakes region or the South.
FOR THE RECORD
Supreme Court: An article in Tuesday's Section A about a Supreme Court ruling on whether elected judges can be on cases involving their donors said that in California, Superior Court judges are elected. Most are appointed by the governor, but they do stand for reelection.
The justices said Monday that there is a real risk of bias -- and certainly the appearance of it -- if one side has spent millions to elect the judge.
"Just as no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the 5-4 Supreme Court decision, so too can fears of bias arise when "a man chooses the judge in his own cause."
Case was criticized
The case centered on Don Blankenship, a West Virginia coal company executive who spent $3 million of his own money to oust one West Virginia Supreme Court justice and to elect his replacement.
At the time, Blankenship and his Massey Coal Co. were appealing a $50-million jury verdict for having driven a small competitor into bankruptcy. After the election, new Justice Brent Benjamin cast the deciding vote -- twice -- to throw out the verdict against Massey.
The case drew wide criticism as a seemingly blatant example of how money could buy justice, and it suggested the plot for a John Grisham novel, "The Appeal." The West Virginia case also spotlighted growing concern over the effect of money in state high court races.
(In California, Superior Court judges are elected, but the governor appoints state Supreme Court justices.)
The Supreme Court did not set a hard or clear rule for when a judge must step aside. The four dissenters called the ruling hazy.
But Kennedy said the principle of fairness requires that a judge not decide cases for a favored benefactor.
"Not every campaign contribution by a litigant or attorney creates a probability of bias," Kennedy said. But "when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence" in putting the judge on the case, that judge would have to step aside, he wrote.
In one sense, the court's ruling puts legal force behind a long-standing provision in the judicial code that says a judge "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." This code applies to all judges, including those on the Supreme Court. But unlike other judges, its justices alone get to decide whether they have violated the code.
