Litigation

Bar Faults Group?s Ad Attack on IL Justice

By Peter Hardin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxnL8kpJEwA

The Illinois State Bar Association has condemned a soft-on-crime advertising attack leveled against state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride run by JUSTPAC, a group affiliated with the Illinois Civil Justice League.

Justice Kilbride is running in a hard-fought retention election. The radio advertisement (available above) featured actors portraying convicted criminals, and voicing appreciation to the justice for allegedly siding “with us over law enforcement or our victims.”

?The ?JUSTPAC? campaign directed at Justice Kilbride is inappropriate and distorts his record,? the state bar group said, according to a Chicago Sun-Times article.

In at least one of the cases, however, Justice Kilbride favored upholding the criminal’s conviction but backed a different legal method for doing so, the newspaper reported.

Once the ad’s accuracy was questioned, some stations halted their use of it. Nonetheless, ?We?ll stand by everything on the ads,? said Ed Murnane of the Illinois Civil Justice League. That group is urging voters to deny reelection to the justice.

To retain his seat on the state’s high court, Justice Kilbride must get a 60 percent “yes” vote, according to a Madison St. Clair Record article about the high-spending race. You can read more about the contest by checking out Justice at Stake’s Judicial Elections 2010 page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on October 20, 2010 (boomark / email).