respublica

Hear Ye Hear Ye

Madison County Circuit Court Judge, Don Weber, the only Madison County Republican judge, has found himself with little to do since the Democratic big boys in legal circles have been moving for substitute judges each time they find themselves in his courtroom.  So far 35 cases have been yanked from Weber by Chief Judge Edward Ferguson. 

Weber is on the November ballot to retain his position and by keeping cases from him, the democrats have made his having any kind of record to run on impossible.  Ah, life in Madison County.  The local democrats have not recovered from their guy's loss to Lloyd Karmeier (R) for the Illinois Supreme Court and are not going to sit idly by while even one lone republican holds court office here.  It's a birthright, don't you know.  Democrats in Madison County get every office.

Illinois Supreme Court overturns Madison County

In a highly anticipated ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned a Madison County judgement against the Philip Morris tobacco company. In 2003 Madison County judge, Nicholas Byron issued a 10.1 billion dollar verdict against the tobacco company finding that Philip Morris duped smokers into believing a light cigarette was safer than those of full strength.

The Supreme Court based its 4-2 decision on a section of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, which exempts conduct authorized by U.S. regulatory bodies. The court held that the Federal Trade Commission authorized tobacco companies to characterize cigarettes as "light" or "low tar and nicotine."

The Madison County Record has more on what they are calling a 'landmark ruling'. Two justices wrote a dissent and one did not vote claiming a relationship with one of the attorneys involved in the case.

This is a huge turnaround in legal decisions for Madison County which recently fell out of first place in the rankings of judicial hellholes nationwide. Rio Grande Valley and Gulf Coast Texas is now number one with Chicago's Cook County taking second place. West Virginia is third with Madison and St. Clair Counties in S. Illinois coming in 4th and 5th. Good news as it is that Madison and St. Clair are no longer 1 and 2, the state is still leading the way for lawsuit shopping.  Cross posted at Illinoize.

The million dollar question

The aftermath of last year's Illinois Supreme Court justice race left questions littering the air much like the confetti which clogged the streets of Chicago after the White Sox victory parade. Now it appears as though one big question has finally been answered. "Who was behind some of the 1 million dollars in so called mystery money which went into losing candidate democrat Gordon Maag's campaign?"

A group calling itself Justice for All Foundation disclosed its donors in order to settle a complaint brought by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and it turns out the big money was given by the same plaintiff attorneys from Madison and St. Clair Counties who financially supported Maag openly. They included Randall Bono of East Alton, the SimmonsCooper law firm and attorney Steven Tillery of Belleville.

So, according to Cindi Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, the "million dollar question" is "why these lawyers would have wanted their donations to Justice for All Foundation to be secret."

One theory is that this money was spent on some of the worst of the television and radio attack ads and no one wanted their fingerprints on them. But to be fair, the polical reform people also have a complaint pending against the winning candidate, republican Lloyd Karmeier's supporters, the Illinois Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity.

For those of us in the southerna part of the state who lived this campaign for months information like this and future Karmeier information is no real surprise. It is also no surprise that this is the race that will not die.

Cross posted at Illinoize

"I don't think it's a crime to be a Republican in Madison County."

Madison County Assistant State's Attorney Don Weber has been appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to the position of circuit court judge in the 3rd judicial circuit, an area covered by Madison and Bond counties. 

Weber will be the first republican circuit court judge in Madison county since Harold Clark back in the 1960's and 1970's.  Even more interesting, he and Congressman John Shimkus are actually the only two republicans to be elected to any county office in the past 25 years.

Next November Weber will find himself on the ballot in order to retain this job and the local democrats have wasted no time gearing up to take back the judgeship they believe is theirs by birthright.  Hours after Weber's name was announced the fight began.

Disbarred Belleville attorney and convicted felon who served 7 years in federal prison for obstruction of justice, democrat Amiel Cueto weighed in on Weber:  "Obviously he wouldn't be my choice if I had anything to say about it."  Thankfully he doesn't, but he may be working the background against him next November.  May?  Will.

In response Weber said:  "He's a disbarred attorney and a convicted felon. I guess he can weigh in if he wants to, and the public can make up its mind."

Madison County public defender and democrat party guy, John Rekowski said:  "Mr. Weber has to be taken seriously," Rekowski said. "But I think when all the records get laid on the table, the voters will make the right decision."

Game on in Madison County.  St. Clair County democrats will be adding their big guns and influence before next year's election is over. 

Still Judge to be Don Weber is taking the optimistic view: "I don't think it's a crime to be a Republican in Madison County. It used to be, but I don't think it is now," he said.

Not a crime, no.  Just an unpalatable idea for County democrats to swallow.  They have it all, have had it all and want to keep it all...to themselves. 

Personal humiliation

For the second time in less than a year, former candidate for Illinois Supreme Court, Gordon Maag has filed a defamation lawsuit against supporters of his opponent, Lloyd Karmeier.  His first attempt was thrown out by 7th Circuit Court Judge Patrick Kelley this past June.  The list of those individuals and organizations named in his suit is long, but includes the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the American Tort Reform Association.

Maag claims advertising flyers gave false information about his judicial record and his election loss, actually two losses on the same ballot as he also lost his retention vote to remain on the appellate court.  Maag also claims he has lost, and will continue to lose, large sums of money in earnings from his prior position as an appellate judge, $163,100 per year for a minimum of 10 years, amounting to a minimum loss of $1,631,000 and lost and will continue to lose health and insurance benefits, with a value in excess of $200,000 and will have his pension benefits reduced by more than $1 million.

In addition to the loss of income Maag claims he has suffered personal humiliation, mental anguish and mental suffering.  He now lives in Alabama.  In dismissing the first lawsuit, Judge Kelley sympathized with how Maag had been characterized during the campaign but ruled that because he was a candidate for political office and not a private citizen.  The burden of proof is much higher for a public person.  He seems to have forgotten some of the wild advertising that was done on his behalf last fall.  What's really going on here is a man who did not expect to lose in a highly democratic district and who cannot get past the loss.  The income from his former elected position is one which should not be counted on as a right.  That money stands or falls at the whim of the electorate.  Everyone who runs for office should know that. 

Whatever happened to Wayne Ewing's documentary about Madison County?

Last fall, movie director Wayne Ewing, best known for his film, Breakfast with Hunter, came to Madison County prepared to make a documentary on the race for Supreme Court Justice, pitting republican Lloyd Karmeier and democrat Gordon Maag.  Whatever became of this locally ballyhoo-ed movie?

In the fall of 04 I had a link to Ewing's web site which contained introductory material and some completed clips, but found that site is no longer available on the web.  Google searches for the movie turned up very little, most links were the same NY Times announcement of a first showing of the film and a West Virginia film festival which had it as one of their offerings.  So I tried the Way Back Machine web site which has many many old, thought to be gone for good, web sites archived.  Type in the address of a no longer found site and up it comes.  Too cool.   Unfortunately, I haven't found the Ewing site which contained the video clips. 

What I learned from the (very few) blurbs advertising the movie was that it purported to show:  "How big business poured money into a judicial campaign in the name of "tort reform".  Thus the final title of the film:  Benched: The Corporate Takeover of the Judiciary.  So much for a documentary giving both sides of the story.  Anyone living in the judicial district in question knows full well big money was poured into that race by advocates for both sides.  Where is the talk about all the millions of dollars given to loser Maag by the trial lawyers?  In any event it appears this film has gone no where, except it is frightening to see that a goal of producer Ewing was to have this film made for viewing in schools and universites.  The film will be feature length and distributed to theaters, television, schools and universities upon completion in January, 2005.

The making of lawsuit heaven

For a really good overview of the goings on at the Madison County courthouse and some history of how it became the lawsuit capital of the United States, this article from the American Enterprise  is a must read. 

The Madison County Courthouse is an imposing structure: a full block long, four stories high, a marble edifice built in 1921 as a symbol of the era when Madison was the most industrialized county in Illinois.

Today the county seat, Edwardsville, is home to only 21,000 people, and the surrounding county has been through a wrenching de-industrialization. Yet the county's civil courts are expanding so rapidly that the entire criminal court system is about to move to a new three-story building two blocks away in order to open up more room in the sprawling main courthouse for non-criminal trials.

Good stuff and lots of quotes from some of our judges and trial attorneys.  via the Illinois Civil Justice League

Madison County documentary

Some time back I wrote about producer Wayne Ewing's plan to come to Madison County and make a documentary about what makes this area the number one judicial hellhole in the entire United States. His web site now has six completed segments you can watch, along with some sort of "crew intimidation" segment which I don't really understand, but which makes Judge Lloyd Karmeier's supporters look bad.  Where was the camera crew when the Gordon Maag supporters went to work last fall?  I have watched the first two, plus crew intimidation, and so far is more favorable to the trial lawyers.  I hope segments 3-6 are more even handed. 

The judge is overruled

My my, things are sure changing in Madison County.  Its almost like how things are changing in the Middle East, Syria looks to be leaving Lebanon, Saudi Arabia may let women vote, Egypt is making noises about real elections, and right here long time judges in plaintiff friendly Madison County are getting overruled.  President Bush should come here more often.

In a case involving a class action suit against AT&T:  "AT&T was accused of deceptively including a charge for the Universal Service Fund (USF)."

At the time Circuit Judge Andy Matoesian ruled to deny AT&T’s request to compel arbitration and stay proceedings.

AT&T appealed to the 5th Appellate Court which ruled this week in their favor and took issue with Judge Matoesian's manner of decision making.  His manner can be described as "not having to explain himself or bother with any legal arguments or precedents."  Nice work, and so very Madison County-ish. 

But that is in the past it appears.  Appellate Court Judge James Donovan wrote:  "As previously noted, the trial court did not conduct an evidentiary hearing and made no written findings to explain its ruling. As a result, we have no way of knowing what particular issue played any part in the court's ultimate ruling."

And that pretty much says it all about the "judicial hellhole" (soon to be former JH) that is the Madison County Court, a court which just spent a lot of tobacco settlement money buying and remodeling a real nice monument to themselves in the form of a new criminal courts center. 

Just say you're sorry, it works, right?

Alan over at the Illinois Civil Justice League, a web blog which promotes tort reform in Illinois has an interesting post up detailing one of his blog visitors.  Seems this person spent 16 hours and 16 minutes on the ICJL site the other day and most likely was the one who left flaming comments, some of which had to be removed.  Good guess as to who thanks to his leaving his IP address. 

Alan has a very thorough series of links which taken in their entirety would bring most readers up to date on the issues of medical malpractice and tort reform in Illinois and more specifically, here in tort heaven, Madison County.