Litigation

?Potential for Mischief? in Big-Money Judicial Elections

By Peter Hardin

There is a huge “potential for mischief,” and public confidence is eroded when state Supreme Court justices have to raise big money to get or keep their jobs, a Mississippi newspaper editorial warns.

The  editorial in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger chiefly tackles the topic of past tort reform, and how  an appeal before the state Supreme Court will test them. But the editorial also drives home a point about judicial elections in Mississippi:

“When Supreme Court justices must raise as much as $1 million to win election or re-election and most of the money comes either from trial lawyers or from the business/medical community, the potential for judicial mischief runs high and public confidence low.

“Electing appellate judges is an antiquated, outdated proposition. Both sides – plaintiffs’ attorneys and the business/medical community – have too much riding on the outcome of cases not to spend big bucks on these campaigns.”

To learn more about the threat of huge special interest money in judicial elections, see Justice at Stake’s issues page on the topic.

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 12, 2010 (boomark / email).