Goodson's bid got late cash; out-of-state lawyers put $40,675 into chief-justice race

Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson
Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson

Attorneys for three out-of-state law firms with ties to the lawyer husband of Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson gave $40,675 in last-minute donations to her unsuccessful campaign for chief justice, according to Goodson's latest campaign contribution report.

The law firms, based in Texas and Pennsylvania, have worked closely with the Keil & Goodson firm of Texarkana on multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuits in Arkansas for more than a decade.

Courtney Goodson is married to the firm's John Goodson.

The latest donations made up about $1 in every $9 given so far to Goodson's campaign. That excludes $641,000 she lent her campaign, according to disclosure reports filed with the secretary of state's office.

The contributions came from lawyers associated with Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check of Radnor, Pa. ($32,575); Crowley Norman of Houston, Texas, ($5,400); and Nix Patterson & Roach of Daingerfield, Texas, ($2,700).

Their donations were dated about a week before the March 1 nonpartisan election, between Feb. 22 and Feb. 25.

Arkansas campaign finance reporting rules didn't require them to be disclosed until after the vote. Goodson's report citing the donations was dated March 15.

Goodson's office on Monday did not return calls and emails seeking comment about the campaign donations.

Spokesmen for the three law firms could not be reached late Monday.

Circuit Judge Dan Kemp of Mountain View defeated Goodson for the chief justice seat with 58 percent of votes, or 331,466 to 242,482.

Goodson, elected in 2010, has two years left in her Supreme Court associate justice term.

Kemp's campaign hasn't filed new campaign donation reports since the election. Final reports are due May 2.

Goodson's March 15 filing also showed that she lent $175,000 to her campaign between Feb. 21 and March 1, bringing the total of personal loans to $641,000.

By comparison, Kemp lent his campaign $20,000 total, according to his Feb. 23 report.

Candidates have 45 days after the election to raise money to retire any candidate loans, said Arkansas Ethics Commission Director Graham Sloan.

Campaign donations to Arkansas Supreme Court justices have attracted attention in recent weeks.

The Arkansas Bar Association and the state Senate Judiciary Committee are studying whether Arkansas should move to appointing, rather than electing, its appellate court judges.

The legislative committee, chaired by Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, meets Wednesday.

The committee and the bar association also are considering ways to move Arkansas' campaign-finance filing system from paper reports to electronic databases to make donor information more accessible to the public.

And they are examining changes to state campaign-finance laws that would require so-called dark-money groups to reveal their donors, at least in state judicial races.

The bar association expects to report in June. Hutchinson, saying "time is of the essence," wants to put merit selection of judges before voters this November.

In January, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette series reported that six class-action law firms -- five from out-of-state -- were among the biggest donors to all six elected justices currently sitting on the Arkansas Supreme Court.

In addition to Kessler Topaz, Crowley Norman and Nix Patterson, the firms included two from Oklahoma and Keil & Goodson of Texarkana.

The six firms gave $296,000 altogether to six current elected justices.

Since 2004, the law firms had donated an estimated $452,000 to 11 state Supreme Court candidates, campaign finance disclosure reports show.

Since 2008, the high court has heard at least eight cases involving the Goodson firm and co-counsels who donated to justices' campaigns. The high court decided all eight in the law firms' favor, a Democrat-Gazette review of those cases found.

State and national judicial ethics experts said the campaign money and the court decisions created "an appearance of impropriety."

Ethics rules for judges in Arkansas and nationwide require them to avoid impropriety or the appearance of impropriety, to maintain the public's confidence in a fair and impartial court system.

Arkansas Supreme Court justices or their campaign managers told the newspaper the campaign donations didn't influence their court decisions because they abide by state ethics rules that require them to remain unaware of who their donors are.

Courtney Goodson was the biggest recipient of the law firms' campaign donations since 2004, campaign records show.

An estimated $142,500 went to her 2010 campaign from all six law firms, according to her campaign finance reports.

In the most recent election, in addition to the $40,675 donated in late February, Nix Patterson lawyer Cary Patterson and family members donated $10,800 earlier in the month. That brought Courtney Goodson's estimated campaign contributions from the three firms this year to $51,475.

Goodson has disqualified herself, as judicial ethics require, from hearing any lawsuits related to her husband's firm.

She has decided other class-action lawsuits that have helped maintain Arkansas' rules and procedures for those types of cases. The state's procedures are among the friendliest in the nation to plaintiffs' lawyers such as John Goodson, according to law professors.

Dark money from unnamed sources also flooded this year's two state Supreme Court races, the one for chief justice and one to fill a vacancy.

The Judicial Crisis Network spent at least $622,435 on ads attacking Goodson. The network has not disclosed its donors.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has expressed support for studying a merit-based system for nominating and approving judges to the Arkansas Supreme Court and the Arkansas Court of Appeals.

A Section on 03/29/2016

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