The Battle Over The Courts

摘要

Like priests, rabbis, and mullahs, judges go to work in robes. Their long black gowns are intended to convey the prestige, seriousness, and scholarliness of their calling. This message is reinforced by everything that surrounds them: the Lady Justice statues, the classic Greek revival courthouses, the people calling them "Your Honor." When you get right down to it, all of these trappings are designed to build faith in the core ideals of the American judiciary: that judges are fair, objective, principled, and nonpartisan. That's the theory. For a dose of reality, go to the Green Grill in Centralia, Ill., where Gordon E. Maag is telling a dozen or so people why he should be elected to the state's Supreme Court. Over a dinner of fried catfish and Budweiser longnecks, the state appeals court judge lets listeners know that he isn't necessarily neutral about every issue, declaring that he's both pro-gun and anti-abortion. Maag and opponent Lloyd A. Karmeier, who holds a slightly lower-ranking seat, are locked in one of the ugliest judicial races in U.S. history. In May, someone rummaged through the Karmeier campaign's trash, digging up, among other things, campaign thank-you notes written inappropriately on official state letterhead. After the papers were delivered anonymously to the local press, Karmeier's backers responded with radio ads featuring two garbage men slamming Maag. "Judge Gordon Maag's supporters have literally taken his opponent's trash," the ad says. "That kind of dirty politics makes us garbage men seem clean.