Mar. 20, 2006
U.S. Supreme Court Takes a Pass on Question of Judicial Conflicts of Interest
By Chris Heagarty
RALEIGH – The U.S. Supreme Court just declined to review the case of Avery v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. Unless you are related to Avery or work for State Farm, you probably didn't notice or care. The reason you should care is that it has an impact on how we perceive the fairness and impartiality of our courts.
The case involved an Illinois Supreme Court justice who declined to recuse, or remove, himself from a case involving one of his biggest campaign contributors.
Several organizations across the country, including the N.C. Center for Voter Education, had asked the court to hear the case and help states understand when recusal is required under the Constitution.
Opinion research conducted in 2005 by the N.C. Center for Voter Education shows that while most voters have a fairly positive opinion about our judges, 86 percent of voters are concerned that large campaign contributions to judges can too often lead to conflicts of interest. Ninety-four percent, an overwhelming number, think that campaign contributions made to elected officials have an influence over their decisions. Fifty-seven percent think these contributions have a great deal of influence.
In an ideal system of justice, the kind we all want, campaign contributions would have zero influence.
The Avery case results from the most expensive state judicial campaign in American history. In 2004, Illinois judges Gordon Maag and Lloyd Karmeier collected over $9.3 million in political contributions. By contrast, North Carolina's most expensive judicial race was the 2000 election for chief justice in which over $1 million was spent.
The challenger, Karmeier, received over $350,000 directly from State Farm's lawyers, employees, and others involved with the company and its legal matters. Counting money from other groups with which they were affiliated, the number grows to over $1 million. Karmeier, not surprisingly, won both the fundraising battle and the election.
Now let's go back to the name of the lawsuit again – Avery v. State Farm. That's the same State Farm that helped finance Karmeier's election. Once on the court, newly elected Justice Karmeier declined to recuse himself from Avery, which had been pending before the court during the campaign. That is, Karmeier had the chance to remove himself from a case due to the apparent conflict of interest of trying to fairly judge someone who just gave you over a million dollars.
Karmeier sat on the case and cast the deciding vote that put over $456 million back into State Farm's pockets. Enough to make the one million they had contributed produce a return on investment on par with Hillary Clinton's cattle-futures commodity trading.
Now, here's the rub: Karmeier may have, in fact, made the right decision. It's entirely possible, given that the Illinois Supreme Court was deadlocked, that there was enough evidence and legal precedent to justify Karmeier's ruling that benefited State Farm. He may have been faced with a tough legal challenge and, through thorough analysis of the law, have come to the correct conclusion.
But who in the world will believe that when they see how much money the insurance company spent to elect the justice, who then ruled to the benefit of the insurance company?
After North Carolina's $1 million race for chief justice in 2000, the legislature passed the Judicial Campaign Reform Act to provide candidates an alternative to this type of campaigning. Through a voluntary system of spending limits, participating candidates raise small donations from state voters, and receive public matching funds to run their campaigns. Voters can support the program by checking “yes” on their state income tax form in support of the Public Campaign Fund.
However, even with these reforms, recusal standards are still a concern. There are judges at all levels who may face a potential conflict of interest. It could be in a situation where an attorney presenting a case has contributed a large sum of money to the judge's campaign or where the judge, as a candidate, has made statements implying favor or bias for one side of a case over the other.
Many judges will remove themselves from a case if a conflict is apparent, but there are no official standards. A conflict that one judge might step aside for, another judge might not see as a problem. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to review the Avery case leaves us without any standards, and only our judges will decide whether or not they have a conflict of interest.
For honest judges that won't be any problem. But then again, the honest judges aren't the ones to worry about.
Chris Heagarty is the executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the quality of North Carolina's election system.
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