Litigation

WA Court Weighs New Recusal Rule

By Peter Hardin

Washington state’s Supreme Court is considering a rule change requiring judges to disqualify themselves in cases involving large campaign backers. It is a direct response to a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

The state Supreme Court is expected to discuss in September whether to adopt a rule requiring a judge to step aside if he or she benefited by receiving $16,000 in financial backing from a party to a case, according to a Tacoma News Tribune article. The proposal is aimed at at independent expenditure campaigns.

The proposal came from a task force of attorneys, judges and lay people and was a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Caperton v. Massey ruling. That decision found that large judicial campaign expenditures could create an unacceptable potential for bias.

An editorial in the same newspaper urged adoption of the recommended rule, especially after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that lifted restraints on corporate and union political spending:

“Judicial races in recent years had already been seeing big surges of political cash, in Washington and almost every other state where judges are elected. People out to buy court decisions will be gaming any chinks in the Massey decision that will let them plant allies in the judiciary.

“All the more reason for the Washington Supreme Court to get ahead of the curve by laying down strict requirements for recusal….This is a crucial moment to reassert the principle that justice shouldn?t be bought or sold ? that judges should be impartial arbiters of facts and laws, not partisans and advocates.”

To learn more about recusal reform, check out the Justice at Stake issues page on the topic. You can also click on the JAS resource page about Caperton to learn about that case.

Full post as published by The Gavel on August 31, 2010 (boomark / email).