Bar association head addresses judges' apparent conflicts
By PETER SHINKLE Post-Dispatch
updated: 05/16/2003 08:47 PM

He says states should force judges to recuse themselves in cases brought by attorneys who donated to their campaigns.

The head of the American Bar Association said Friday that states should adopt rules requiring judges to recuse themselves from cases brought by attorneys who gave them political contributions.

Bar association President Alfred P. Carlton Jr. said during a visit in St. Louis that the rules would "be a long step toward curing the perceived impropriety" of judges taking contributions from the lawyers arguing before them.

Madison County Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron drew national attention in March when he awarded a $10.1 billion judgment against a tobacco company in a class action lawsuit brought by a Belleville firm. Lawyers of that firm and their relatives gave nearly $10,000 to Byron during a fund-raiser last year, the Post-Dispatch reported last month.

In an interview Friday, Byron dismissed the notion that judges should recuse themselves from cases brought by lawyers who have donated to their campaigns.

"I don't see a problem there," he said. "I'm unaffected. Whoever donated, fine."

He also condemned the Post-Dispatch's reporting on the matter.

"I think you're beating this to death. I don't care. That's my opinion," he said. "I'm fair and impartial. Thank you."

Carlton did not criticize Byron's presiding over the case, saying that was the judge's decision to make. But he said the public takes a dim view of judges receiving money from the lawyers who appear before them.

In 1999, the bar association adopted a model code of judicial conduct that includes a rule requiring a judge to recuse himself or herself from a case if an attorney in the case made a campaign contribution to the judge. So far, no state supreme court has adopted the rule, Carlton said.

Byron's presiding over a case in which the lawyers before him had given him nearly $10,000 in campaign contributions has gotten the attention of at least one state Supreme Court justice.

"That's an outrage," said Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., who mostly blamed the Illinois judicial election process.

Limbaugh said Missouri's judge selection system avoids such problems because state judges in St. Louis, St. Louis County and Jackson County, which includes Kansas City, are recommended by a nonpartisan panel and then appointed by the governor. Judges in those areas later must face an election to retain their positions.

In other counties, elections continue, but the candidates do not raise large sums of money, Limbaugh said. As a result, he said, there is little need for a rule like the one in the bar association's model code.

Joe Tybor, a spokesman for the Illinois Supreme Court, said he was unaware of whether the court had considered the ABA's model rule on contributions.

In Illinois, most state judges are chosen through elections in which candidates are identified with a certain political party.

An ABA commission studying the role of money in judicial elections is expected to recommend that all states halt partisan elections, offer optional public financing for campaigns and make judges' terms longer, he said.

Reporter Peter Shinkle:
E-mail: pshinkle@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-621-5804