Elected Judges and the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that elected judges should step aside from cases where their large campaign contributors are involved. This rule came from a case in West Virginia where a company contributed about $3 million in the campaign for the state Supreme Court Justice. Now this justice is involved in a case of the same company with $82.7 million in stake.

As theory says, and commentators believe, the biggest problem with judicial election is the possibility of tilting the rules in favor of the campaign contributors. Elections were designed to cut the hands of politicians from the judicial offices, but it seems that the need for campaign money threatens this goal. These days the money spent on judicial campaigns are huge. This makes judges sort of accountable to contributors.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in this case. Four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens joined the swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy who wrote for the Court. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented and conservative justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined him.

Read the story in NYTimes.