An Article to Feed Your Paranoia, or Inspire You to Make a Campaign Donation to Your Favorite Judge

Damon Cann of the University of Georgia posed an article today on the Social Sciences Research Network that ought to give pause to all of us who live in states that elect judges.  We can only hope his conclusions are wrong, especially here in Oregon.  The abstract tells it all: Abstract:      While federal judges are selected by appointment, many state judges are selected through competitive elections. As state judicial campaigns become progressively more costly and political, judicial candidates have turned increasingly to lawyers and law firms as a source of campaign funds. Given that contributing lawyers frequently appear in court, it is natural to wonder whether judges are more likely to rule in favor of attorneys who offered financial support to their campaign. Looking at cases from the Supreme Court of Georgia's 2003 term, I show that campaign contributions are indeed correlated with judges' decisions. Further, using a two-stage probit least squares estimator to address questions of causality, I show that the campaign contributions directly affect judicial decision making. You can read the article for free (registration required) here.