Now who woulda thunk…
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Judges Are for Sale — and Special Interests Are Buying
A new report details how big business and corporate lobbyists are packing courts with judges who put special interests ahead of the public interest
The Occupy Wall Street movement is shining a spotlight on how much influence big-money interests have with the White House and Congress. But people are not talking about how big money is also increasingly getting its way with the courts, which is too bad. It’s a scandal that needs more attention. A blistering new report details how big business and corporate lobbyists are pouring money into state judicial elections across the country and packing the courts with judges who put special interests ahead of the public interest.
A case in point: West Virginia. In 2007, the West Virginia Supreme Court, on a 3-2 vote, threw out a $50 million damage award against the owner of a coal company. Funny thing: the man who would have had to pay the $50 million had spent $3 million to help elect the justice who cast the deciding vote. The West Virginia ruling was so outrageous that in 2009 the United States Supreme Court overturned it. But that was unusual. In most cases, judges are free to decide cases involving individuals and groups that have paid big money to get them elected.
So who is paying? The new study – by New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and the Justice at Stake Campaign, a non-partisan reform group – found that a small group of super spenders plays the biggest role, using their money to buy the kind of judges they want hearing their cases. These super spenders are the usual suspects: mainly big business, corporate lobbyists, and trial lawyers. Also high on the list: a disturbing category called “unknown.” In many states, disclosure laws are so weak that special interests can buy judicial elections without the public even finding out.
Read more from Time.com: http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/31/judges-are-for-sale-and-special-interests-are-buying/#ixzz1cU9BKAza
Copy of the report below…
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4closureFraud.org
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A Campaign to ‘Intimidate America’s State Judges’
The reality is that we won’t get back to anything approaching a true democracy again until we rip money out of ALL elections. There needs to be an absolutely strict, etched in stone spending limit on every election down to dogcatcher. And there has to be teeth in the regulation – you cheat, you’re removed from the ballot. If you’ve already taken office when the cheating is discovered, you’re removed, heavily fined and the job is given to the runner up. Either way, you’re never allowed to run for public office again.
Period. No excuses, no leniency.
OMG, in MI they don’t even try to hide it. Look up the story of the northern MI judge who accepted sports tickets from an attorney right in the middle of the courtroom. Someone filed a complaint and he got a slap on the hand – but just imagine what these scumbags do when no one is looking.
In 2008 Judge Alice Schlesinger took money under the table from Frank Malone of Fidelity National Title and David K Fiveson of Coronet Title to perpetrate Title Fraud.
Someone told me find a woman that Thomas Nooter (a Demorcratic leader for Elections and husband of Judge Alice Schlesinger) had an extra martial affair with and it could crash open the conspiracy that goes on between New York Supreme Court and the First Appellate Division for fraudulent foreclosures and other void ab initio judgments.
Have to part ways in having Governor appointed judges. Making it a partisan appointment is ‘out of fat into fire.’ In TN, we have Governor Haslam, you know the GOP governor who ousted the OCCUPY people from the park until a judge allowed them to demonstrate? A party appointed judge will always be beholden to the party who put him in place. There is no justice in looking over your shoulder every minute when deciding a case against the influential corporate favorite of the governor!
Public disclosure and public money might be the best answer. Vetting might work. By and large you have a public ignorant of much that goes on and could care less so they listen to the one-sided advertising and the minute an expensive ad comes on with some jerk standing in a field by a tractor telling the watcher he is agin’ gay marriage, abortion, and he has his gun propped up beside him, I know for a fact I am in Tennessee or the South and the guy in the photo is a Republican!
Just sayin. . . . .
This is my home. Nationally they don’t spend a lot of money trying to influence us or campaign here because we are solidly in special interest’s corporate pocketbook as a RED statem, standing out in a hay field.
I have wailed and ranted about judges on the take. What the banks are doing under the table with judges makes the mafia look like kindergarten kids. At some point the Justice Department must look into the fraud these circuit judges in Florida have been involved with. If we cannot put some bankers in jail, then let’s go for the judges. And then put them in with the same criminals they sent to the big house. I am sure they will receive a nice party when they come through the gates and their name is called over the PA system welcoming them to their home away from home. The judges will gladly take any money they can get under the table, under the bench. in the panties of some hooker, or in their secret account over in the Cayman’s. All we have to do is keep up the heat. Does anyone know anyone in the Justice Department who is looking into circuit court judge fraud?
Good to see some inroads into the examination of our legal system. Not just judges are being bought and sold, state Legislatures are limiting the legal system against the consumer. GOP majority TN state legislature stacked the deck against victims by capping awards that can be paid through TN courts in damages. On the surface this appeals somewhat to the public by favoring physicians who are sued for medical malpractice in supposedly ‘frivilous’ lawsuits.
This was not the motivation behind tort reform caps for Tennessee’s legislature. It was openly an enticement to favor big business wanting to locate or manufacture in TN, in the biotech fields or engage in research or product manufacture. The law is designed to require suits to be filed in TN against these companies for injured victims and classes to be recognized by TN courts. The law favors or creates a safe haven in which Corporations can locate and operate without fear of legal consequences from faulty products. They call it “encouraging business to come to TN.”
One could say $750,000 cap non-economic would be a lot of money for an award. Just try to get an attorney to take a case that may take years and thousands of dollars to pursue against a deep pocket corporation with money for attorneys to challenge and draw it out, billing regularly. See if you can get anyone to commit to large legal expenditure with an extremely limited recovery, if the case ever makes it to the court or jury. No, this is big business buying the legislatures to stop the public’s access or voice in courts. It has nothing to do with medical malpractice. If one has a child injured or damaged for life by say a faulty trampoline, pool product, drug or medical device the parents may never get representation to go the legal route. The child was not employed so he or she lost no wages. He or she may be brain damaged or crippled for life with a potential of millions in care, education and cost but in TN their recovery would be limited before they ever step into court.
Well, you get the idea, don’t you?
We are losing our voices in the courts, in the legislatures and in our lives. If we don’t support reform from the people for the people we will find ourselves at the bottom of the barrel. We are almost there now. The transition to a plutocracy is almost complete! Our only hope is to oust the Republican-led candidates who only need us or even court us is when it comes time to vote. The Republicans sold us out and the Democrats are not far behind them in being greased by Wall Street slime. Time to get a third party in to take over the Courts and federal Government for the people!
Everytime you hear a politician utter ‘reduce the size of Government’ it is sliding out of the mouth of a GOP or Tea Party candidate, systematically removing YOUR rights and doling them out to banks and Wall Street.
THINK!
Lets narrow it down, we are at war with our LOCAL government! Our DA’s, our AG’s, our County and State Courts! Our JUDGES, our LOCAL ELECTED OFFICIALS! Our State Representatives! We MUST solve this AT HOME! Forget about the Congress, the President, FOGETABOUTTHEM! Its LOCAL!
ORGANISE LOCALLY!
Find out what ‘lawyers’ are buying out judges prosecutors to protect their clients from prosecution and then have those lawyers PERSECUTED. Its a question of whether or not the USA is going to survive! The paradigm has SHIFTED!
Find out what ‘lawyers’ are buying off judges prosecutors to protect their clients from prosecution and then have those lawyers PROSECUTED. Its a question of whether or not the USA is going to survive! The paradigm has SHIFTED!
You are right Igor, It is local but it bleeds over into national too. We MUST start at home to make changes to change the top!
…obviously, we are at war with…..ourselves! Our Govt, Obama, Geitner, Bernancke and others have chosen to collapse our already flimsy economy. We would go broke in a minute if China was to dump our bond debt that they have their finger on. We are not in good shape. I never thought we could be left as helpless as we are. Revolution may be the only answer…….