From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

$218,000 for one judge

By Kevin McDermott
Post-Dispatch Springfield Bureau

April 27, 2003

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Judges on the ballot last year in Madison County - where the legal system is widely known for its generous lawsuit awards and settlements - took in three times as much in political donations, on average, as their fellow judges in St. Clair County and throughout Illinois, records show.

A Post-Dispatch analysis found that those donations to judges, in the Metro East area and statewide, are coming primarily from lawyers.

Attorneys last year contributed more than $2 million to Illinois judges - including the very judges who decide their cases - making the lawyers the single most generous profession for judicial campaigns, the analysis found. Unlike most states, Illinois has no dollar limits or conflict-of-interest rules that would prohibit lawyers from giving any amount of money they want to judges.

"The 50 states choose judges about 50 different ways . . . , (but) Illinois is one of the most wide open in terms of campaign contributions," said Mike Hotra, spokesman for the American Tort Reform Association. "You really do see what looks like a, quote, 'investment' in the court system" when attorneys give money to judges.

In Missouri, Supreme Court justices, appellate judges and some circuit court judges (including those in St. Louis and St. Louis County) are appointed by the governor. Those judges stand for retention. While campaign committees could be formed on their behalf, it is rarely, if ever, done.

The Post-Dispatch analysis found that judges running for election or retention in Madison County last year averaged more than $100,000 each in campaign receipts. That's three times the roughly $29,000 average the newspaper found for judges statewide and 10 times the $10,000 average in Cook County's crowded judicial system.

The average take for Madison County judges is about four times more than for judges in neighboring St. Clair County, which has roughly the same population.

The Washington-based American Tort Reform Association recently cited Madison County as second on its list of the nation's top 11 "judicial hellholes" because of its culture of high class-action lawsuit awards. It's a culture that many critics say is directly related to political contributions.

"When a lawyer is before a judge and has given money to that judge, there's at least the appearance of impropriety," Hotra said. "In a courtroom . . . the appearance of impropriety can be just as bad as actual impropriety."

Ballots throughout Illinois last year included the names of more than 230 judges or judicial candidates for positions ranging from subcircuit benches in Chicago to circuit and appellate courts statewide, to one spot on the state Supreme Court.

Among the Madison County-based judges on the ballot last year was Appellate Court Justice Melissa Chapman of Edwardsville, who took in $218,000 in itemized campaign donations - largely from lawyers who practice within the appellate district - far outpacing all but one other appellate candidate in Illinois and making her one of the top judicial recipients in the state, according to the Post-Dispatch analysis.

Also among the top recipients was Madison County Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron, who got a substantial chunk of his money from a law firm to whom he later granted a record tobacco lawsuit judgment.

Among the newspaper's other findings:

Judges up for election or retention statewide received, in all, about $6.6 million in campaign contributions last year, encompassing both the primary and general elections.

Those figures include the combined $1.47 million raised by Sue Myerscough and Rita Garman in their bruising fight for the one open state Supreme Court seat in central Illinois. Garman won. It also includes contributions to circuit court judges like Byron, who raised more than $70,000 in his personal campaign fund and shared in an additional $140,000 in a fund he formed with two other judges - all for a retention vote in which he faced no opposition.

Lawyers were the most frequently identifiable profession to give money to judges. Much of the money the judicial candidates received came from donors whose professions aren't clearly specified in campaign records (donors are required to list their professions only if they give more than $500). But of the roughly $3.5 million that came from sources in which it was possible to determine their professions from the records, lawyers donated about $2.1 million of it.

Under Illinois law, judges and other politicians can spend that money only for campaign-related purposes or for charities.

Legal scholars say that kind of financial connection between lawyers and judges creates at least the appearance of impropriety. It's part of the reason the American Bar Association and others have suggested that states should set rules requiring judges to recuse themselves if they've accepted above a certain threshold of money from either of the parties in a given case.

"The most benign view is, lawyers give donations because they want to elect the fairest judge . . . A more cynical spin says that they're hoping to get some kind of break" in court, said Peter Joy, a law professor at Washington University. "I'm not impugning any motives of lawyers who give donations to judges . . . but everybody (in the system) is deluding themselves with this fiction (that they can) ignore public opinion."

Joy cited a 1998 poll in Texas - a state where the issue of campaign contributions to judges has been particularly controversial - in which a majority of attorneys responded that they believe those donations did have an impact in the courtroom.

Nationwide, concerns about lawyers giving donations to judges are being increasingly voiced by prominent legal figures.

"I have seen some judges who were swayed (by lawyers' donations) without even realizing it," said Chief Justice Tom Phillips of the Texas State Supreme Court, one of the nation's most outspoken activists for removing politics from the selection process for judges.

"Polls show that over 80 percent of the people think judges have been compromised by campaign contributions," Phillips said. "The justice system depends on people thinking they're getting a fair shake."

He said the financial relationships between lawyers and judges taint the reputations of court systems like that in Madison County, which he said is known - even in the Texas legal system - as a place "where the lawyers take turns being judges."

An ad for 3 judges

Shortly before the Nov. 5 election, television viewers in the Metro East area saw something unusual: a 30-second television spot asking voters to retain not one, but three, Madison County judges.

The judges, Byron, Edward Ferguson and Phillip Kardis, all of the Madison County Circuit Court, paid for the commercial from a fund they set up together last year, raising more than $140,000. That was in addition to the individual campaign funds each of the judges maintains, each of which raised more than $40,000 last year.

Judges seeking retention don't face any opposition candidate but have to get 60 percent of the vote to stay in office. Generally, judges are retained with little discussion, but the three judges said afterward that they were concerned about rumors of a stealth campaign to oppose their retention.

Their concerns turned out to be unfounded, with each of them receiving well over 75 percent "yes" votes for retention on Nov. 5. Their joint campaign fund continued raising money after the election, garnering another $53,000 to pay off debts the fund had incurred. Much of that money came from high-profile legal firms in the Metro East area.

"I think the public certainly has a right to wonder whether a judge is making a fair decision when he has been supported to such a large extent by the lawyers," said Edward Murnane, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League. The Chicago-based coalition of businesses and others maintains that the state's legal system is out of control and that heavy influence wielded by plaintiffs' attorneys is part of the reason.

"It's no coincidence" that Madison County issues such high lawsuit awards and is also at the forefront of political donations to judges, said Murnane.

Byron, Ferguson, Kardis and Chapman couldn't be reached for comment.

A huge judgment

Byron awarded a record $10.1 billion judgment last month in a tobacco suit brought by Korein Tillery LLC of Belleville. The firm deflected criticism over the award, in part, by putting out a statement noting that the lead attorney in the case, Stephen Tillery, had made just one $500 donation to Byron, at a fund-raising event last year.

What the statement failed to mention was that 18 other attorneys of the firm or their relatives gave similar donations at the event, providing Byron with almost $10,000 from the firm in a single day. (The firm later amended the statement to acknowledge the full level of donations from the firm - and to note that the opposing defense attorney in the case also donated $1,500 to Byron's two committees.)

Byron has previously maintained that he hasn't pressed lawyers for money, that both plaintiffs' and defense attorneys have donated to him, and that the donations are legal.

Tillery, the Belleville attorney, didn't return a call seeking comment but has previously said that there was no coordinated effort by his firm to contribute to Byron and that the contributions had nothing to do with the cases the firm has argued in Byron's court.

In Texas, said Phillips, the chief justice, law firms are limited to $30,000 in donations, and any individual donations by the firm's lawyers or their relatives counts against that total. Still, he said, the core problem of public perception remains.

"Lawyers often try to support candidates who have a particular philosophy about the development of the law, and I think that's legitimate," Phillips said.

But he added: "I've never seen a judge send out a fund-raising letter that says, 'By the way, you get nothing by supporting me.'"

Phillips and others have suggested that one solution could be public funding of judicial campaigns - with lawyers footing the bill through a professional fee.

Reaction from attorneys to that idea has been mixed. A spokesman for the Illinois State Bar Association said last week that the group is looking at the issue, and questioned why the cost should be specifically borne by lawyers.

Korein Tillery, the Belleville firm, noted that such ideas for change often come from business associations with a vested financial interest in scaling back the legal system.

"We think public financing of all elections, not just judicial elections, has merit and should be explored," Korein Tillery spokeswoman Joy Howell said in a written statement. "But you have to be somewhat circumspect about criticism of the Illinois judicial system when you're relying on a perspective by associations funded by the same corporations that are defendants in these consumer cases."

Reporter Kevin McDermott:
E-mail: kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 217-782-4912