Opinion ID: 2452183
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the fight to defend the court

Text: NARRATOR: In the early 1970s, a handful of the richest, most powerful personal injury lawyers in Texas devised a scheme to seize control of the Texas Supreme Court, using big-money politics to rewrite Texas law and tilt Texas justice unfairly in their favor. By 1976, they had succeeded. The Texas legal system became their hunting ground. Business and health care were forced to run for cover under the threat of an activist Supreme Court with a legislative agenda. Insurance premiums soared. Hospitals and doctors were forced out of business. Corporations fled Texas. New businesses stayed away. And the people suffered. Even the network's 60 Minutes asked: MIKE WALLACE: Is justice for sale in Texas? Some recent headlines might make you wonder. The Wall Street Journal has called the decision of one Texas court a national embarrassment. The New York Times editorialized that the conduct of the Texas courts is reminiscent of what passes for justice in small countries run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses. NARRATOR: In 1988, a bipartisan coalition of medicine, business, agriculture and industry arose. And the people reclaimed the Supreme Court in the name of fairness, impartiality and reform, ousting five of the trial lawyer's handpicked candidates and restoring balance to the Court. A clean slate for '88. In 1990, medicine again took the lead and defeated the trial lawyers by electing three more reform candidates. The Court to support in '90. Now the empire strikes back. The trial lawyers are massing their considerable forces for another assault on the Court. The last of their handpicked Supreme Court judges is seeking reelection to a six-year term. They are preparing for the fight of their lives on Tuesday, November 3rd, 1992. Judgment Day '92. Though thwarted in the last two election cycles, the trial lawyers have made it painfully clear that they are back; that this year they will spare no expense to reestablish their grip on the Supreme Court, to obliterate the efforts of four years of Supreme Court reform, to turn back the clock to 1976 and return the Court and the laws to their way of thinking. JOE JAMAIL: That's bullshit and naive. You know it and I know it. KIM ROSS: The trial lawyers are not easily intimidated. They certainly aren't plagued by self-doubt. They have raised and spent already over half a million dollars in the primaries. They recruited a candidate to run against Jack Hightower. They recently won a crucial state Senate race by dumping $200,000 in in the last two weeks. They are down to their last set of votes on that bench, and they are coming to take the Court back. NARRATOR: Medicine's fight to defend the Court began in the democratic primary, when our adversaries recruited one of their own hanging judges to challenged Supreme Court Justice Jack Hightower, one of the clean-slate '88 reform team. The defense of Judge Hightower was led in the primary by TEXPAC, the Texas Medical Association Political Action Committee, and TEXPAC will lead the defense of this outstanding and independent judge once again on judgment day, November 3rd. Justice Hightower is one of three TEX-PAC-endorsed candidates for the Supreme Court, along with incumbent Supreme Court Justice Eugene Cook and Dallas appeals court Chief Justice Craig Enoch; three outstanding judges who will maintain the balance on the Court, and who have also been targets for the richest and most powerful political operatives in Texas. PAT MALONEY: There are times when only a jury and a judge can resolve a serious injury dispute between a patient and a doctor or a hospital. Lawyers who try these medical malpractice cases must have special experience and be able to master the area of medicine involved. NARRATOR: For almost a year, multimillionaire trial lawyer Pat Maloney of San Antonio has been raising money for Justice Cook's opponent, Rose Spector, proudly pointing out her history of siding with trial lawyers in multimillion dollar lawsuits. In this letter he cites her decision, which gained Maloney a $56 million verdict. Justice Cook was elected in 1988 as part of the clean slate and has established an enviable track record of independence and impartiality. JUSTICE EUGENE COOK: As judges, we have only one constituency, the people of Texas, not the defense bar or the plaintiff's bar, not urban or rural, not East Texas or West Texas. We don't represent lawyers; we represent the people of Texas. NARRATOR: The race which will attract the most media attention will be in Place 1, where Justice Enoch is challenging Oscar Mauzy, the last seat on the trial lawyers' handpicked Supreme Court bench. Mauzy, a long-time trial lawyer and state Senator, came to the Court with an agenda, to finish the job he started in the state Senate. In 1987, in an attempt to extend the Deceptive Trade Practices Act to doctors and other professionals, he said it directly. When asked how that case differed from a similar recent case where the Court ruled for the defendant, Mauzy wrote, The answer to that question is that the makeup of this Court has changed. You recall Mauzy's cozy judicial relationship with internationally famous trial lawyer Joe Jamail was highlighted in the now infamous 60 Minutes expose. MIKE WALLACE: So the lawyers are just interested in good government, in good justice here in Texas? JUSTICE OSCAR MAUZY: Well, I think you have to talk to every individual to find out. There may be some individual somewhere who may have a private slant. I'm pleased that over half the people that contributed to me last year were not lawyers. They were people who have known me a long time and ... MIKE WALLACE: In numbers? JUSTICE OSCAR MAUZY: In numbers, that's right. MIKE WALLACE: Of people.