Dueling Polls…Or Would A Judge Sell Out for $304?
February 2, 2010
“The public wants cash out of the courtroom – and that could mean pushing out elections, too.” So concludes an article in the Texas Tribune, citing as evidence a poll conducted by Justice at Stake which found that 84% of Americans believe judges should not hear cases from major contributors and 74% believe campaign contributions have some impact on a judge’s decisions.
But the leap the Texas Tribune makes from these manufactured survey findings to the conclusion that Texas should abolish democratic judicial elections is a clanking non sequitur.
A 2008 poll by the American Justice Partnership Foundation found that 75% of Americans believe state Supreme Court judges should be elected and only 21% supported so-called “merit” selection. Even a poll released by the staunches of “merit” selection supporters – the American Bar Association – found that only 19% of Americans wanted to turn judicial selection over to “merit” boards.
In that same article, the Texas Tribune publishes contributions by employees at top law firms between 2000 and 2009. Over that time period, 1,103 individual contributions were made at an average of $304. Even Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson – a staunch “merit’ selection supporter – had to admit that “most judges don’t sit down at night and go over the list as to who contributed and who has not contributed to their campaign.”
The real problem, then, isn’t the fact that judges are changing their votes to please contributors, because Chief Justice Jefferson agrees they aren’t – at least not for $304. Instead, all we’re really dealing with is a problem of “public perception.”
If the public is wrong in their perception – as Justice Jefferson seems to believe – then isn’t the answer to better educate the public about the virtues of its judges, rather than punishing the public by eliminating their role in judicial selection altogether?
Posted by Dan Pero in the categories: Judicial Elections, Justice at Stake, Texas
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