EDITORIALS

She stoops to judge

On Justice Goodson’s docket today: Disgrace

— “Rule 1.2 A judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.”

-Arkansas Code of Judicial Conduct

WHAT a coincidence. Just as the U.S. Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments over the class-action scandal, whose latest center is Miller County, Arkansas, there in the courtroom was an associate justice of this state’s Supreme Court, Courtney Hudson Goodson. And she is introduced to an associate justice of the high court.

So? So this: It just so happens that the Arkansas justice is married to a lawyer with a not inconsiderable stake in the case being heard that day. Depending on your ethical standards, you could call it judicial courtesy-or file it under Impropriety, appearance thereof.

As for said class-action scandal, it raises more than questions. It should raise hackles. It works like this: File a suit, however baseless, in Texarkana, Ark., against some distant corporation that, rather than bothering with the expense and trouble of defending itself in Arkansas, prefers to pay off the plaintiff. And, most important, the plaintiff’s lawyer(s).

This is called a settlement, but it comes closer to legalized extortion. Justice Goodson’s husband-and other lawyers on the make-have made a fortune at it. Class-action suits filed in Miller County have raked in an estimated $400 million in attorneys’ fees over the past seven fat years. Enough to make the national press.

How did this associate justice from Arkansas arrange to be in that Supreme Court chamber in Washington and make the acquaintance of The Hon. Antonin Scalia at so propitious a moment?

It won’t surprise those who follow the misadventures of the state’s Supreme Court that the Goodson-Scalia summit was arranged by none other than His Honor Robert Brown, who has a long history of lending the highest, most scholarly tone to the most dubious proposals. For example, having been elected to the state’s highest court after waging a particularly low campaign, he would come back years later to suggest a taxpayer-funded commission to police what candidates for judicial posts said in election campaigns.

What ever happened to that bad idea anyway? Wasn’t it handed off to the state’s bar association? Better the bar should investigate the ethics of the state’s highest court, or at least of its now most prominent/notorious justice.

Mr. Justice Brown’s excuse for arranging this introduction? To quote the story in Arkansas Business, “I just thought it would be great for her to be at the oral arguments and for [Justice Scalia] to say hello.” Did it ever occur to him how it would look? If it did, it’s clear that small matter-it’s called propriety-didn’t discourage him. He’s got more connections than a Hollywood agent, and keeps making more of them for others.

MEANWHILE, back in Arkansas, the same Justice Goodson reported receiving a $50,000 trip to Italy last summer from another Fayetteville lawyer (W.H. Taylor, Esq.) who’s been involved in at least one of those class-action suits as her husband’s co-counsel. We have no idea how much $50,000 comes to in euros or lire, but our best guess is a lot. And that was on top of a $12,000 Caribbean cruise the year before courtesy of the same Counselor Taylor.

Naturally, with a well documented record like this, Mrs. Justice Goodson would be the state Supreme Court’s liaison to its Committee on Professional Conduct, which is supposed to check on lawyers’ ethics. For connoisseurs of irony, Justice Goodson’s record has got to be a whole banquet of it.

See a pattern here? It’s not a pretty one. Indeed, it’s a disgraceful one. But what lawyer would risk offending a sitting justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court by pointing it out? Where there is no vision, the prophet said, the people perish. And where there is no courage, justice languishes. And so does popular confidence in it.

Not since The Hon. Wendell Griffen was moonlighting as a demagogue in the pulpit and political arena has the reputation of this state’s appellate bench been called into such question. There’s a reason for Rule 1.2 of this state’s code of conduct for judges. For not even the appearance of impropriety should be allowed to stain a judge’s robes. But thanks to Her Honor Courtney Hudson Goodson, the spreading stain can’t be ignored, much as she might like all to pretend we don’t notice it. For you can be sure every appellant who appears before her will be well aware of her propensity to accept lavish gifts.

Here’s what Justice Goodson needs to do at this (low) point: Apologize, return that $50,000 and any other sizeable gifts to her husband’s lawyer friend, resign from the court, or any and all of the above. But that would show a simple respect for the law, for the state’s highest court, for herself, and just for the principle of the impartial administration of justice in this state or appearance thereof-none of which Her Honor has shown much concern for to date.

Editorial, Pages 16 on 02/16/2013

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