According to the author, Alex A. Alston, Jr., the answer is yes! And this from an unlikely source - a corporate defense attorney. Alston, who has been a corporate defense attorney for over 40 years, wrote a wonderfully poignant op-ed about the court's overwhelmingly lopsided number of decisions in favor of corporations. Alston's op-ed, which recently appeared in a Mississippi newspaper, The Clarion Ledger, noted that over the past four and a half years, "a plaintiff's success rate in reversing a jury verdict for the defendant is an astonishing zero." Talk about an un-level playing field. Alston goes on to say that all we need to do is follow the money trail to find out why justices have been so pro-corporation in Mississippi:
How can it be that during the last 4 1/2 years powerful corporations, hospitals, and insurance companies have prevailed in the state Supreme Court in nearly every case? Can an injured plaintiff ever be right?
Perhaps it is because we elect our Supreme Court justices. In the 2002 election, insurance companies, large corporations, and doctors poured millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of most of the justices. One of the new judges that year alone received over a million dollars from these sources...
Probably the best indication of how a Supreme Court justice will rule is the source of the political contributions he or she receives...
If powerful corporations and insurance companies have financed a justice's campaign, you would not be far off in guessing that his or her rulings will most likely be in favor of his donors.
For the full op-ed click here.
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