Among the headlines we used to believe any Arkansas Supreme Court justice would try to avoid would be this one: “Justice Took $50,000 Trip From Lawyer.”
But that’s the real headline emerging from a regular check of state-required fi nancial disclosure forms judges and constitutional off cers must fi le.
Which justice is involved? The same one who accepted a $12,000 trip - a Caribbean cruise - in 2011 from the same attorney.
It is, of course, Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson, who readers in our neck of the woods might remember as Courtney Henry from back when she was part of that politically connected.
A little background on how the justice reached this point. Courtney then-Henry ran in early 2010 as a family-oriented judge and lawyer, then her husband fi led fordivorce a month after her election to the Supreme Court. She fi led the legal paperwork necessary to waive “the necessity for plaintift to present corroborating evidence.” How cordial.
In 2011, the justice reported $99,539 in gifts during 2010 from a Texarkana lawyer named John Goodson. At the time, Henry identified Goodson as her boyfriend and acknowledged “he has given me gifts.” Those included nine trips totaling $46,853 and a watch, earrings, a coat, a necklace and four bags adding up to the rest.
She has since married Goodson, so for the rest of this editorial, we’ll call her Goodson. Keep up.
Along comes the end of 2012 and it’s time to provide another financial disclosure form.
Goodson’s colleagues followed the law as well, reporting their extravagances: Donald Corbin received a trip costing $1,018 to beautiful University of Cincinnati College of Law to judge a products liability moot court competition; Corbin also took an $875 summer trip to a 2012 Forum for State Appellate Court Judges in Washington D.C.
That wild-n-crazy Chief Justice Jim Hannah traveled to the National Foundation for Judicial Excellence symposium in Chicago. Cost was $1,231.
Corbin also went to the symposium for a whopping $966 paid by the foundation.
Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson waited until August for her gift - a $50,000 trip to Italy courtesy of Fayetteville attorney W.H. Taylor.
Through a spokesman, the justice identifi ed the renowned local attorney as her husband’s friend and business partner.
She says she’ll recuse if any case involving Taylor comes to the Supreme Court. Ya think?
Of course, Taylor has his own client list that involves Tyson Foods, Arkansas Razorbacks football players and many others. We’re not sure if her pledge to recuse extends to any of those cases.
The price on that trip, of course, is a bit mindboggling. She presides, after all, in a state where the per capita income was $21,833 in 2011.
Most troubling, however, is this: When Justice Goodson was elected to her eight-year term, it was based on the most valuable commodity she oft ered as a judge: her judgment.
That looks highly questionable with the acceptance of such extravagant gifts in a position that demands integrity. Of course, she hasn’t done anything illegal. But the entire scenario doesn’t smell very nice and makes one wonder about her independence as a judge.
Nobody demanded Courtney Goodson become a Supreme Court justice, but now that she’s there for another five years, the public would be right to expect her to behave irreproachably like a judge.
When in Rome ...
Opinion, Pages 5 on 02/13/2013