Proscribed political line
"[During Georgia's legislative sessions it is] illegal for legislators to accept campaign money (but not for donors to give it). The contributions are prohibited to help avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance that special interests are giving money in exchange for favors." — Lucy Soto, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 3
The American Heritage Dictionary defines cronyism as, "Favoritism shown to cronies without regard for their qualifications, as in political appointments to office".
If Georgia legislators can see the need to impose a three-month ban on individual members' acceptance of campaign contributions during their legislative sessions, so as to remove the appearance of any form of conflicting interests between them and their campaign contributors, then surely such a ban is equally appropriate for all of the state's judges and attorneys.
The July 2 Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported: "Frances Paul found herself in a Cobb County courtroom on the losing end of a fight with her young son's grandparents over visitation.
"Midway through her appeal, she found [out] that the [opposing] attorney was also the chairman of the judge's election campaign. Days before, Hylton Dupree Jr had written the judge a [US]$1,000 check.
"Paul's attorney asked Judge Adele Grubbs to bow out of the case. She declined.
"The judge's response, according to court records, was: 'While Mr Dupree may be the chair of my campaign committee, he is not the manager of my campaign. And that is an entirely different thing'."
The audacity of that response to such a reasonable request is frightening, but not the least bit surprising. There was sufficient conflict of interest in that case to disqualify Judge Grubbs the moment she realised that one of the attorneys works on her campaign committee, not to mention having recently contributed $1000 to her campaign.
Judges and attorneys who appear before them should not be allowed to contribute money, goods or services to one another. The practice all but guarantees some form of favouritism in the courtroom.
Moreover, that Judge Grubbs feels that she did no wrong gives you some idea of the depth of self-righteous delusion most (but, hopefully, not all) of Georgia's judges wallow in.
Now, if you doubt the accuracy of my charge of cronyism in this and other cases, consider the following: when Paul's appeal was taken before the higher State Court of Appeals, that court declined to even comment on the issue, thereby upholding Grubbs' decision.
It would seem that most of the state's judges are willing to give their tacit support to other judges' abuses of power, even if they do not individually approve of those abuses. To do otherwise means they risk being ostracised by the group as a whole.
Which begs the question: when will one or more of them muster the judicial courage necessary to cross their good ol' cronies' proscribed political line?
BY BRANDON ASTOR JONES
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or email <BrandonAstorJones@hotmail.com>. You can visit the author's web site at <http://www.BrandonAstorJones.com>.]