Court Opinion

ID: 9636865
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:46:14.43289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:50.405642
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bok :
I must dissent on the point of the indefensible conduct of the judges in allowing such a political advertisement to go out over their names. To compound their offense, the advertisement sought to promote the fortunes of an aspirant to a court position, that of district attorney, whose opponent’s campaign manager *19was counsel for one of the parties actually on trial before one of the signatory judges.
Because of the nature of the advertisement nothing needed to be said to imply that Mr. Hanna’s opponent believed in waging and was waging a “dirty, slanderous campaign of political filth and lies” or that his campaign manager, sitting right there at the counsel table trying to prevent the plaintiffs from recovering money for their injuries, was the prime mover in such tactics.
The fact that the record does not show that any juror had read the advertisement or knew that counsel was campaign manager for McCloskey or was influenced by these facts does not cure the situation. Counsel had no recourse but to keep silent and hope that the jurors were still neutral. It would have been madness to ask them on voir dire if they had seen the advertisement and, in order to identify it to them, read it aloud, or if they felt it applied to him. This is not one of those calamities that get into court records. It is rather an exact example of the cow that put her hoof in the pail; the milk cannot possibly be strained clean.
We should need no proof to regard such litigation as infected beyond repair.
Nor am I satisfied to let the case go because apart from the advertisement the result appears to be a good one under the evidence. I deplore the ethical future of our profession if we condone improper behavior on the Bench so long as the cases turn out well.