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matthewdalyHere's Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal in a nutshell: a coal company loses a $50 million lawsuit over a reneged contract with a mining company and appeals it. But the state supreme court had an unsympathetic judge who was up for election, so the coal company CEO spends $3 million (evidently more than everyone else in the race put together) against the incumbent, who loses. This newly elected judge overturns the verdict. The plaintiff cries foul, arguing that the judge should have recused himself if only on the suspicion that he would be beholden to his largest contributor.
The Supreme Court agrees with the plaintiff. Would you believe me if I told you that it was a 5-4 ruling?? What, you would? Well, smarty pants, I'm sure that you wouldn't know that the minority would be made up of Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts ... uh, you knew that too? Wow, either you are psychic or 88% of our highest court is made up of sock puppets for ideological purity.
Scalia's dissent is particularly baffling. "What above all else is eroding public confidence in the nation's judicial system is the perception that litigation is just a game, that the party with the most resourceful lawyer can play it to win, that our seemingly interminable legal proceedings are wonderfully self-perpetuating but incapable of delivering real-world justice." Yes, people don't like that an expensive lawyer can give the upper class better results than an inexpensive one can give the middle class, but how do you get from there to the concept that we should therefore overlook the ability of the plutocrats to go beyond that and just buy a judge who will overturn a jury verdict?
The part the really bugs me is that the "just a game" and "incapable of delivering real-world justice" is spotlighted by this 5-4 ruling. I am very welcoming of the notion that elected judges should be presumed to be above bias for their contributors and that the gears of appeals courts would ground to a halt if every $100 donation was considered to be a bribe. We have a respect for freedom of public campaign fundraising in the United States (even for judicial elections in some places with some restrictions), and I don't want to trample that. So you issue a ruling saying that there is a line somewhere and it is fuzzy and you don't want to say that it's $10,000 because then rich people would know that they and their children and business partners can all safely give $9,999 and future courts would have to reconsider your edicts when inflation brings your limits down to working-class donors. But, for the love of all goodness, four Supreme Court justices can't agree with the majority that the judge should recuse himself when standing in judgment over a guy who gave you three million dollars? I suppose I shouldn't target Scalia when my real gripe is against Chief Justice Roberts for not crafting a 9-0 ruling that states that the ruling is very narrow and not open season on contribution-based appeals.
And, like always, I am grateful to justices like Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Conner. There are folks on the bench who are more likely to deliver the votes that make me happy, but I'm satisfied when a thoughtful center-right judge considers a case and delivers an opinion that doesn't insult my intelligence even if it goes against me. I think the nation would have been better served throughout its history had it always been filled with nine people like that instead of being a trailing indicator of the political outlooks that held the White House.
The Supreme Court agrees with the plaintiff. Would you believe me if I told you that it was a 5-4 ruling?? What, you would? Well, smarty pants, I'm sure that you wouldn't know that the minority would be made up of Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts ... uh, you knew that too? Wow, either you are psychic or 88% of our highest court is made up of sock puppets for ideological purity.
Scalia's dissent is particularly baffling. "What above all else is eroding public confidence in the nation's judicial system is the perception that litigation is just a game, that the party with the most resourceful lawyer can play it to win, that our seemingly interminable legal proceedings are wonderfully self-perpetuating but incapable of delivering real-world justice." Yes, people don't like that an expensive lawyer can give the upper class better results than an inexpensive one can give the middle class, but how do you get from there to the concept that we should therefore overlook the ability of the plutocrats to go beyond that and just buy a judge who will overturn a jury verdict?
The part the really bugs me is that the "just a game" and "incapable of delivering real-world justice" is spotlighted by this 5-4 ruling. I am very welcoming of the notion that elected judges should be presumed to be above bias for their contributors and that the gears of appeals courts would ground to a halt if every $100 donation was considered to be a bribe. We have a respect for freedom of public campaign fundraising in the United States (even for judicial elections in some places with some restrictions), and I don't want to trample that. So you issue a ruling saying that there is a line somewhere and it is fuzzy and you don't want to say that it's $10,000 because then rich people would know that they and their children and business partners can all safely give $9,999 and future courts would have to reconsider your edicts when inflation brings your limits down to working-class donors. But, for the love of all goodness, four Supreme Court justices can't agree with the majority that the judge should recuse himself when standing in judgment over a guy who gave you three million dollars? I suppose I shouldn't target Scalia when my real gripe is against Chief Justice Roberts for not crafting a 9-0 ruling that states that the ruling is very narrow and not open season on contribution-based appeals.
And, like always, I am grateful to justices like Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Conner. There are folks on the bench who are more likely to deliver the votes that make me happy, but I'm satisfied when a thoughtful center-right judge considers a case and delivers an opinion that doesn't insult my intelligence even if it goes against me. I think the nation would have been better served throughout its history had it always been filled with nine people like that instead of being a trailing indicator of the political outlooks that held the White House.
