Then the bullets fly.
Questions arise as the dust settles.
The opening scene is early last August, when trial lawyers told the reporters about judges who appeared to tip the scales of justice in favor of contributors. Their preliminary findings, Johnson says, included a lower court judge who contributed to an appellate judge sitting directly above. And there were lawyers who tried cases before judges they had supported with contributions. But the project needed a quid pro quo, a dramatic case in which a judge's findings were so plainly biased that no one could miss the point. Jr. In the database Idsvoog and Johnson were building, both Evans and Lindner showed up as significant contributors to various candidates for the bench.