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Justice Goodson getting help again from her Italian yachting companion
Several sent to me invitations to a fund-raiser for Associate Justice Courtney Goodson, running for chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court against Judge Dan Kemp.
It is a sad fact of judicial elections that lawyers provide the bulk of the financing — along with corporate interests such as the chamber of commerce, hoping to elect judges who'll protect them from lawsuits.
This particular fund-raiser is of interest because it indicates an old friend and benefactor of Goodson, W.H. Taylor, wasn't discouraged by past publicity from chipping in more clout and dollars to his friend.
Taylor, who's done work for the family that controls the Tyson poultry fortune, arranged a $50,000 Italy yacht trip on a Tyson yacht for Goodson and her current husband, John Goodson, a wealthy lawyer and lobbyist and UA trustee. Goodson recuses from Tyson cases and also from Taylor cases. Judges don't recuse from all cases involving lawyers who've given them money. In theory, judges don't know who contributes to their campaigns, nominally handled by a separate committee. In practice, everybody presumes they do. The candidates sometimes attend fund-raisers thrown for them, which is but one indication of the porousness of this supposed wall between candidates and money.
It is a sad fact of judicial elections that lawyers provide the bulk of the financing — along with corporate interests such as the chamber of commerce, hoping to elect judges who'll protect them from lawsuits.
This particular fund-raiser is of interest because it indicates an old friend and benefactor of Goodson, W.H. Taylor, wasn't discouraged by past publicity from chipping in more clout and dollars to his friend.
Taylor, who's done work for the family that controls the Tyson poultry fortune, arranged a $50,000 Italy yacht trip on a Tyson yacht for Goodson and her current husband, John Goodson, a wealthy lawyer and lobbyist and UA trustee. Goodson recuses from Tyson cases and also from Taylor cases. Judges don't recuse from all cases involving lawyers who've given them money. In theory, judges don't know who contributes to their campaigns, nominally handled by a separate committee. In practice, everybody presumes they do. The candidates sometimes attend fund-raisers thrown for them, which is but one indication of the porousness of this supposed wall between candidates and money.
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http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2015/11/21/justice-goodson-getting-help-again-from-her-italian-yachting-companion
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