Litigation

Indy Lawyer PAC to Boost Impartial Justice?

By Peter Hardin

Have the folks in Indianapolis, Indiana come up with a new way for lawyers to give to judicial campaigns–while removing a possible appearance of impropriety from doing so?

An Indianapolis Star article reports that the city bar association is forming a new political action committee. The PAC will receive voluntary donations from lawyers, then turn around and give it out equally to candidates from either party who make the general election ballot for Circuit and Superior courts. The plan, which the newspaper calls a “blind trust” approach, will take effect in 2012.

Christine Hickey, Indianapolis Bar Association president, explained: “For the bar association, the issue is very simple: It’s about public perception and the appearance of impropriety, and also allowing our attorneys to support the judiciary without being open to attack.”

A task force of lawyers began looking for a new solution following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Caperton v. Massey decision. That decision found that large judicial campaign expenditures could create an unacceptable potential for bias.

Charles Hall of the Justice at Stake Campaign called the PAC idea “unique” and “intriguing.” He added, “I have not heard of anything like this elsewhere.” If enough lawyers send their donations to the PAC and not individual candidates for judgeship, it could bring progress in curbing perceptions of judicial favoritism, he said.

The plan has detractors too. Marion County Democratic Party Chairman Ed Treacy said, “It really is a bunch of cheap lawyers who want to say, ‘I gave at the office.” He is married to a Superior Court judge.

The task force chairman identified these goals for the plan, according to an Indiana Bar Association press release: “1) to prevent the appearance that justice is for sale, 2) to promote public confidence in attorneys, judges and the judicial system, and 3) to provide a service to members by giving them a choice to avoid making direct contributions to judges in whose court they may appear.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 07, 2010 (boomark / email).