ILLINOIS JUDGES: Buying justice?
Tuesday, Dec. 20 2005

Lawyers for Philip Morris USA and a business lobbying group backing the company spent more than $1 million to get Lloyd Karmeier elected to the Illinois Supreme Court last year.

Last week, Justice Karmeier cast a deciding vote that erased a $10.1 billion lower court judgment in a class-action suit against the big tobacco company.

An ordinary citizen, jaded by Illinois’ long history of government shenanigans, might wonder whether Mr. Karmeier was simply returning the favor. Considering that Mr. Karmeier never heard the arguments made in the Philip Morris case (he came on the bench a month after the case was argued) and the glaring appearance of conflict of interest, a decent argument for recusal could be made.

Mr. Karmeier’s history as a small-town judge in rural Nashville, Ill., would suggest that he has too much integrity to sell his vote. Yet the juxtaposition of gigantic campaign contributions and favorable judgments for contributors creates a haze of suspicion over the highest court in Illinois.

That destructive suspicion will last as long as Illinois continues to elect judges the way it elects aldermen, legislators and the governor: in money-fueled, mud-slinging, partisan political campaigns.

Republican Karmeier won his seat after an ugly election campaign against former Appeals Court Judge Gordon Maag, a Democrat. At more than $8 million, it was the most expensive judicial race in American history, and probably the most degrading as well. The judges, both of whom had respectable records on the bench, got down into the mud and flung away, charging each other with going easy on pedophiles and torturers.

Wealthy plantiffs’ lawyers backed Mr. Maag to the tune of $4.2 million. Business interests bankrolled Mr. Karmeier for $4.3 million. The Illinois Civil Justice League, a business-financed group. gave $1.19 million to Mr. Karmeier’s campaign and filed a brief for Philip Morris. Philip Morris’s lawyers kicked in another $16,800 for Mr. Karmeier.

Both sides had lots of money at stake. In addition to the Philip Morris case, there was the recent $1.05 billion verdict against State Farm Insurance, which Mr. Karmeier also voted to overturn. Business also hoped to end the conga line of happy plaintiffs’ lawyers dancing for dollars at the rolling fiesta of class action and asbestos litigation hosted by the judges of Madison County.

Although Mr. Karmeier is an intelligent and no doubt honest man, the manner of his election will cast doubt over every vote he casts in a business case. This shakes public respect for the courts and the law — which is a foundation of our democracy.

And it’s completely unnecessary. Illinois has only to look to Missouri for a better way of picking judges.

Judges don’t run in partisan elections in Missouri’s urban counties and for the state’s appellate courts. A non-partisan commission chooses three candidates for each judgeship, and the governor picks one. The commission consists of appellate judges and members appointed by the governor and the Missouri Bar. The system isn’t completely free of politics; candidates still try to pull strings. But when Missouri judges make decisions, nobody thinks it’s political payback time. In Illinois, you have to wonder.