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Justice Maureen O’Connor says campaign money doesn’t affect her

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Judges are also aggressive fund-raisers, often shaking down lawyers for donations and pushing tickets to soirees. When Scene called a sampling of lawyers who had argued before the Supreme Court in 2007, most said they'd received invitations to O'Connor's fund-raisers. "It's not unusual for law firms and lawyers to receive those," says Chuck Ticknor, a lawyer with Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs, one of the bigger firms in Ohio. "We get them all the time. It's routine for big law firms to give money to both sides."

But what about those lawyers who don't shell out? David Pheils, a medical-malpractice lawyer from Perrysburg, says he has never given to a Supreme Court race and never will. His stubbornness has cost him dearly.

"Based on the cases that I have attempted to take up to the Supreme Court, I'd have to say that Chief Justice Moyer and others are influenced by their supporters," Pheils says. "I don't feel like we get a fair hearing. They do not appreciate their role as a protector of the public."

Rutledge agrees with O'Connor that a lot of judges are simply trapped in a bad system, playing by the only rules available. Still, he's not letting them off the hook. "It's time to start thinking about changing those rules," Rutledge says. "[People like O'Connor] should be speaking out against that system. Stop playing the victim, and start being an advocate for change."

Since judges are unlikely to turn down money, the American Bar Association is hoping that they'll at least try to avoid the perception that they're bought. Last year, the group asked each state to enact strict recusal standards so that judges wouldn't sit on cases where there was a clear conflict of interest. Ohio has yet to act. And if O'Connor feels victimized by a system that makes her appear corrupt, she's done little to combat the perception.

In just the first two months of 2008, O'Connor has already raised $209,000, according to campaign finance reports. Most of that came from doctors and insurance companies. Her opponent, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Russo hasn't filed papers yet, but he'll surely be facing an uphill fight.

"That is what has tilted right now," says Pfeifer. "It is very hard for a Democrat to get elected, because of the corporate money that comes in. The Dems can't match that. The unions have been reined in. That's what has made the court more conservative."

(Russo refused comment for this story.)

O'Connor was recently given the opportunity to recuse herself from a case in which she has a clear conflict of interest.

In 1996, Smart Media, a Virginia company, developed a handheld bar-code scanner. It took its invention to Akron's Telxon Corporation, which promised to finance the manufacturing and marketing of the product. But after two years and millions of dollars in development, Smart Media was left without any financing. Telxon hadn't kept its part of the deal. The two companies ended up in court.

In 2003, a Summit County jury awarded Smart Media $212 million — the largest award in county history. But two years later, appeals court Judge William Batchelder reversed the jury's decision. Smart Media's lawyers soon discovered that Batchelder had received hefty campaign contributions from Telxon's CEO, Robert Meyerson ["Cash Machine," December 12, 2007].

Smart Media is now asking the Ohio Supreme Court to reverse Batchelder's decision, based on his clear conflict of interest. The company also asked O'Connor to recuse herself. After all, Meyerson has been one of her greatest contributors too.

When she was running for Lieutenant Governor, O'Connor received $52,000 directly from members of the Meyerson family, according to campaign finance records. That doesn't include the $212,000 Meyerson also gave to the Summit County GOP, which in turn gave O'Connor $218,000.

Meyerson also contributed $215,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee, former Congressman Tom DeLay's elaborate laundering system, for which he was accused of violating election laws in 2005. The committee then gave the money to the Ohio GOP, which in turn donated $176,000 to O'Connor. (Meyerson did not return Scene's phone calls.)

But despite getting nearly a half-million from Telxon's CEO, she still deemed herself neutral enough to rule on his case. "There would be no reason for me to recuse myself," she says.

Greg Melick, Smart Media's lawyer, compares O'Connor's decision to the famed Coingate case, in which Republican fund-raiser Tom Noe lost $50 million in workers' comp funds.

When Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles first asked to see the state's investment records, the state refused to turn them over, arguing that they were "trade secrets." The case landed before the Ohio Supreme Court.

The entire bench recused itself, citing Noe's donations to all the justices. Visiting judges ordered the records be made public. Noe was eventually sentenced to 18 years for theft, money-laundering, forgery, and corrupt activity.

But the difference was that Noe had become a toxic name in Ohio politics, and Republicans were scrambling to flee any connection. As Melick points out, "Justice O'Connor recused herself in those cases after only having received $3,500 in direct campaign contributions from Mr. and Mrs. Noe."

Meyerson gave far more, but since the Smart Media case wasn't in the headlines, O'Connor had no risk of political fallout.

The justice claims she doesn't even know how much Meyerson gave her. "He donated $2,500 or something," she says. Once again, her voice begins to fill with agitation.

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