What's The Problem?

JUDICIAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS: The Fig Leaf

The independence and impartiality of judges is a cornerstone of modern, effective government. As Louisiana emerges from the ravages of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, the opportunity presents itself for a fresh beginning in many aspects of life. One aspect eager to be left behind is the commonly held perception of corruption of the judicial branch of state government that is felt both within and outside the state.
Perception, when it comes to public confidence, is reality. The public perception of Louisiana's judiciary is hardly an inspiring one. For the past several years, Louisianans have watched the seemingly endless series of revelations arising out of the Wrinkled Robe scandals in Jefferson Parish and the convictions of several judges for corruption in both Orleans and Jefferson Parishes.

The recent guilty plea and conviction of Judge C. Hunter King who bullied and pressured his staff to raise money for his election is particularly relevant.

The recent conviction of Judge Alan Green, videotaped by the FBI shaking down a local lawyer for campaign contributions, along with convictions or sanctions imposed on other sitting judges has reduced public confidence and respect for the state judicial system and the law within Louisiana to new lows.
The view of Louisianans about their own judicial system is echoed in the country as a whole. Louisiana's legal system was ranked 49th in a 2006 Institute for Legal Reform/Harris Interactive Ranking of State Liability Systems. The US Chamber of Commerce Ranked Louisiana 50th in judge's impartiality, 49th in judge's competence and 48th in overall ranking. Louisianaís judicial system is clearly not working and is seen from within and without as not working.
Corruption is not just about criminality. The system used to elect judges and the conduct it spawns is perfectly legal, but corrupting nevertheless. Corruption is about bending the will of a judge to elevate his own personal interest in employment security above those of the public he serves including, most importantly, people whose fates he holds in his hands.

Corruption is about the impact that money contributions have on a judge who has received it from one side in a case but not the other. The common and, in Louisiana, perfectly legal situation where a judge has received financial contributions from lawyers or litigants compels legitimate questions from the public regarding how impartial a judge can be when the other side in a case has not.
The naked specter of judicial corruption of the non-criminal kind is hardly concealed by the fig leaf of Judicial Canon 7(D)(1) that states "A judge or judicial candidate shall not personally solicit or accept campaign contributions." The existence of this prohibition in the Judicial Canons, along with its subsidiary subsections that truly reduce the effect of the rule to a sham, deceives the public into the comforting but false notion that judges are effectively insulated from the special interest money that fuels their elections. Nothing could be further from the truth. Judges facing elections, or with campaign debts from their last election, are actively and intimately involved in fundraising as any lawyer reading this publication well knows.
The very next sub-section of Canon 7 provides more than the proverbial loop-hole; it swallows the rule. A judge's "friends" or "supporters" (almost all of whom are inevitably lawyers) can raise money for the judge and inevitably do. Supporters who are lawyers can handle cases in the same judge's court without the slightest legal or judicial impediment. Non-lawyer litigants that have cases pending before the same judge need not worry either. The recusal rules of the Code of Civil Procedure do not even address the point. It is all perfectly legal in Louisiana.
Judges themselves can and regularly do directly solicit virtually every lawyer in the district or circuit where they are running to join their "finance committee" whose numbers often run into the hundreds. Letters from the "finance committee" contain what must be the largest letterheads known to American correspondence. The names of dozens or even hundreds of lawyers are contained on the first page surrounding yet another appeal to more lawyers or others to donate money to the judge's campaign.
To believe that elected judges do not know who has volunteered to run their campaigns, solicit and raise campaign money on their behalf is simply incredible. To believe that judges do not have access to or knowledge who has given money to their campaign is likewise unbelievable. Yet the judiciary and their contributors who benefit from the current system persist in hiding behind this fig leaf whenever the corruption issue is raised. The silence with which the persistent denials that the present system corrupts judges is met is much like the story of Emperor with no clothes. Many people, particularly lawyers who make their living in symbiosis with the judiciary, let these declamations pass rather than offend the established order.
Simply trying to elect better people to be judges is not the answer. It is the system that is rotten and should go.The storms and the advent of a new legislature of new people, replacing a majority in both houses who have termed out, give the people of Louisiana a golden opportunity to sweep away a judicial system that has served ill for too long and is regarded with such suspicion and even contempt that it taints the truly innocent and good judges who sit on the bench today.