Fw: Are Corporations Lobbying the Judiciary? Excellent Expose on 20/20

[Guest guest]

Think we'll ever get a fair shake in court?

Patty

From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...>

Sent: Friday, April 06, 2001 10:25 PM

Subject: Are Corporations Lobbying the Judiciary? Excellent Expose on 20/20

> ~~~ thanks jean ~ it's quite disheartening ~~~

>

>

> http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/2020_010406_judges.html

>

> Lobbying the Judiciary?

> Many Judges Are Getting Feted for Free

>

>

> April 6 - At three o'clock on a glorious weekday afternoon in Tucson,

> Ariz., a group of federal judges finishes up the ninth hole on the links

of

> one of the country's top golf courses.

>

> In addition to golf, the judges have gathered at a resort to attend an

> educational program that critics call an inappropriate junket.

>

>

> Golf, Sun and Seminars

>

> Each year about one in 10 federal judges will attend similar private

> gatherings at some of the finest resorts in the country. The bill is

picked

> up by a handful of groups that get their money from big corporations and

> pro-business organizations. Some argue the groups have a lot more on their

> agenda than a few rounds of golf.

>

> " This is the way corporate America is lobbying the judiciary - teaching

> judges to rule as if they were corporate CEOs, " says Doug Kendall,

director

> of a nonprofit environmental group called The Community Rights Counsel.

> Kendall's group has linked the judges' seminars with what it considers the

> 10 most dramatic rulings against environmental protection laws.

>

> " We found that in all 10 of those cases the judge writing the opinion had

> been to at least one of these junkets, " says Kendall, " In six of those 10

> cases, the judge was attending a junket while the case was pending before

> them. "

>

> In one case involving the timber industry, a federal judge completely

> reversed his position after attending one of these private seminars. The

> judge denies the seminar affected his industry-friendly decision but

> Kendall is skeptical.

>

> The seminar in Tucson is organized by the Law and Economics Center, out of

> Mason University's law school, which has a reputation for a

> pro-business leaning. The judges' week included seven separate sessions,

> which the school says are unbiased and over the years have included Nobel

> prize-winning economists.

>

> Corporations Paying the Tab

>

> Mason's dean, Mark Grady, sees nothing morally questionable about

> the seminars. " These are academic retreats. What could be more natural

than

> for a law school to seek to train academic judges? " he asks.

>

> Grady is proud the academic seminars are influencing judge's thinking. " We

> are, yes, we are, we are out to influence minds, " he says, " If court cases

> are changed, then that is something that we are proud of as well. "

>

> Grady doesn't name contributors, saying that Mason no longer

> discloses its sources because " the academic program stands on its own

> feet. " But this was not always the case. The corporate sponsors were

> publicized until 1994, which was when the criticism of the program began.

>

> The donor list then was a who's who of Fortune 500 companies, many of

which

> have cases before the federal courts. The list also included a foundation

> run by Mellon Scaife, a conservative multimillionaire best known

> for financing investigations of President Clinton's personal life.

>

> By reviewing tax documents, 20/20 has learned that last year alone,

through

> his foundation, Scaife provided $150 thousand for the judges' free trips.

>

> Question of Credibility

>

> While such seminars are perfectly legal, judiciary ethicist Geoffrey

Hazard

> says judges have a responsibility to determine who's paying for their

> virtually free week at the golf resort to avoid possible conflicts with

> pending cases.

>

> The Tucson excursion was the fifth such seminar for Judge Jarvis of

> Tennessee. Since Jarvis began attending the seminars, he has presided over

> at least six cases involving large corporations, all of which confirmed to

> 20/20 that they helped pay for the Mason seminars. Jarvis says he

> doesn't know who was funding the conference and points out he's paying his

> own greens fees.

>

> Judge Neal Biggers of Mississippi insists his decisions won't be swayed

> regardless of who's paying the tab. " If I don't know who is paying for it,

> then I am not going to be affected either way by who it is. "

>

> But former Judge Abner Mikva thinks the judges should avoid even the

> appearance of unethical behavior. " I think judges should realize that,

that

> they don't have that much credibility to spare, " says Mikva.

>

> As chief judge of the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he was

> appalled to see many upstanding judges being wined and dined by

> corporations in the name of judicial education. Mikva says, " The

appearance

> of impropriety is considered as important as the impropriety itself. "

>

> Mikva worries that judges will follow the footsteps of politicians and

lose

> the faith of the American public. " Most of the time we think about judges

> with more respect and more deference than we think about elected

officials.

> I want to keep that distinction, " he says.

>

>