|
BOB EDWARDS, host: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
I'm Bob Edwards.
A liberal environmental law firm has filed ethics violation
charges against three federal judges. The judges sit on the
governing board of an organization that favors business-based
solutions to environmental law. The board is accused of holding
seminars that give pro-industry lawyers a chance to mingle
with judges in a setting cozier than a courtroom. But others
say the allegation is without merit. NPR's Peter Overby reports.
PETER OVERBY reporting:
To some, this resembles the controversy over Supreme Court
Justice Antonin Scalia's duck-hunting trip with Vice President
Dick Cheney at a time when Cheney is the defendant in a Supreme
Court case. One difference, though: Here it's alleged that
ongoing programs give many corporate interests the chance
to influence many federal judges.
One case captures the essence of the conflict. In 1998, Carol
Browner, then head of the Environmental Protection Agency,
issued new limits on soot and smog.
Ms. CAROL BROWNER (Former EPA Administrator): This is the
most important public health decision that the Environmental
Protection Agency has made in the better part of two decades
and will probably continue to be so for the next 10 to 20
years.
OVERBY: Industry sued the EPA. The case wound up at the DC
Circuit Court, the court that most often handles big questions
of federal policy. Then, as now, the chief judge for the DC
Circuit was Douglas Ginsburg. He also serves on the board
of FREE, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the
Environment. FREE's position is that environmental policy
now should focus on market solutions, not regulation. The
group flies federal judges to Montana for seminars that examine
these issues.
About the time the smog and soot case reached the DC Circuit,
FREE added a new member to its board, Edward Warren, industry's
lead attorney in the case. Warren also taught at a free seminar
that summer of 1998. In the audience was another DC Circuit
judge, David Sentelle. The DC Circuit struck down the rules.
Ginsburg and Sentelle cast important votes in the process.
Douglas Kendall, from the four-person environmental law firm
Community Rights Counsel, draws this conclusion.
Mr. DOUGLAS KENDALL (Community Rights Counsel): FREE was
manipulating their seminar schedules and their board membership
to provide access to the lead litigator in an environmental
case of intense interest to their corporate and foundation
funders.
OVERBY: The Supreme Court later overturned the Circuit Court
decision, but today, Community Rights Counsel is filing an
ethics complaint against Ginsburg, arguing that he shouldn't
serve on the board of such an organization. Similar complaints
are being filed against federal appellate judges Danny Boggs
of Ohio and Jane Roth of Delaware, who also serve on the board
of FREE.
John Baden, FREE's director, says Kendall's story is absurd.
He says the timing of Warren's board appointment was coincidental,
that he and Warren are old friends and so are Warren and Judge
Ginsburg.
Mr. JOHN BADEN (Director, FREE): Here we have two extremely
distinguished people at the top of their professions, and
the assertion that they were somehow influenced by spending
time together at one of our programs strikes me as so ludicrous
on its face that it doesn't merit consideration.
OVERBY: Baden says Community Rights Counsel is just stirring
up media coverage so it can raise money. Judges Ginsburg and
Sentelle declined comment for this story. Judges Boggs and
Roth didn't return phone calls.
David Sellers, a spokesman for the federal judiciary, says
judicial ethics rules allow Ginsburg to serve on FREE's board.
He says he worries...
Mr. DAVID SELLERS (Spokesman for the Federal Judiciary): ...that
these attacks are nothing more than an effort to intimidate
certain judges that have ruled in a way that is not consistent
with the views of the group that's leading the attacks.
OVERBY: Legal ethics scholar Stephen Gillers worries, too,
but for different reasons, first, that any federal judge,
especially a DC Circuit judge, would serve on the board of
a group with an ideological agenda.
Mr. STEPHEN GILLERS (Legal Ethics Scholar): It's just a mistake
and should not happen.
OVERBY: And second, that judicial ethics rules still let
outside groups pay for the education of federal judges. But
Gillers believes judges should attend seminars by FREE or
anyone else.
Mr. GILLERS: That's the judge's prerogative, just as a judge
could subscribe to right-wing journals or left-wing journals
as he or she may choose.
OVERBY: This kind of debate over judicial ethics may be just
heating up. Community Rights Counsel, for one, has checked
the financial disclosure of every federal judge over a 10-year
period. That's 70,000 pages of details about educational seminars,
gifts and investments by the least-scrutinized branch of the
federal government.
Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.
|
