Text of March 18 press release from Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts.
PHILADELPHIA (March 18, 2010) — Following the release of a study last week on campaign contributors to Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices, the American Judicature Society re-examined the data and found inaccuracies. Due to an error that resulted in some court cases being counted more than once, AJS reevaluated all of the data.
The revised report shows the following eye-opening results:
- In 60% of the cases, at least one of the litigants, lawyers, or law firms had contributed to the election campaign of at least one justice.
- In nearly one-third of the cases (32%) a single litigant, lawyer, or law firm had contributed to at least four of the six elected justices’ election campaigns. This represents a majority of the court.
The initial results were announced in a press release on March 9 by Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts.
Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts is a statewide, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to promote the reform of Pennsylvania’s judicial system. www.pmconline.org
Case data was obtained from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts and campaign contribution data was provided by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. AJS’ report of its study will be published in the next issue of Judicature and is available at http://www.ajs.org/selection/jnc/docs/AJS-PAstudy3-18-10.pdf
Contact: Lynn A. Marks or Shira Goodman, 215-569-1150
