U.S. Supreme Court turns down Illinois appeal
The Supreme Court today refused to hear a case brought to them by plaintiffs in Avery v State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance.
The premise of the appeal was that Illinois Supreme Court Justice, Lloyd Karmeier was wrong not to have recused himself from Avery because he was said to have received campaign money directly from State Farm, accusations State Farm denied. All this during the heated southern Illinois supreme court race in 2004 in which Karmeier and his opponent, Gordon Maag set spending records. When the Avery case got to the Illlinois Supreme Court Kameier voted to throw out a $1 billion dollar judgment against State Farm.
The Supreme Court does not have to explain why they refuse to hear a case, and their reasons may be because they felt there was no basis for the appeal or that they felt the lower court answered it correctly or they may want to wait for a better case on the same issue.
What this case does highlight is just why the Karmeier (R) v Maag (D) Illinois Supreme Court Justice race was one of Southern Illinois' most contentious campaigns in recent memory.
3 comments:
That is not really a shocker.
Taking the case would mean that Justices Scalia and Alito would then face scrutiny for cases in which they may have had conflicts. They punted this one at least in part because they did not want to raise that issue.
The Illinois Supreme Court was right in the underlying case, so justice was done.
It is just too bad to see our United States Supreme Court have to shy away from ethical issues.
Well, I don't know that they were right about it.
Karmeier was, effectively, the tie-breaking vote in that case, and the $350,000 he reportedly got from State Farm-related sources during his campaign should be enough for him to recuse, if you ask me.
If that isn't the bar, what is? $1m? If we agree that money buys influence in legislative offices, why do we think it doesn't buy anything in judicial offices?
What an odd idea Karmeier had. "Different policy provisions should be considered different." He's insane! Stop him! Who cares what the policy says. This is Illinois. The INSURANCE COMPANY MUST LOSE!
Is that your point, Mr. Tyler?
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