Reinforce court's integrity by voting for Hunstein
Marietta Daily Journal
Posted 10-16-06

Judges author hundreds, sometimes thousands of opinions in the course of a career on the bench. For the citizen on the street, and for voters, that makes it relatively easy to get a read on a judge's outlook, temperament and legal acumen. Unfortunately, it also makes it easy for a political opponent to "cherry-pick" a handful of a judge's decisions and unscrupulously try to portray them as representative of that judge's legal philosophy. And that is exactly what is happening this fall in the race for the Georgia Supreme Court.

Republican Mike Wiggins, who has spent most of his recent career in Washington, D.C. working for the Department of Justice and prior that worked for a blue-stocking Atlanta law firm, is trying hard to unseat Justice Carol Hunstein of DeKalb County, who has served Georgia on the high court since her appointment by Gov. Zell Miller in 1992.

Her personal story is as compelling as her professional one. As a young woman she lost a leg to cancer, and as a young mother was deserted by her husband, but worked her way through college and then law school at Stetson University. She has been a judge for 22 years, including her time on the high court.

Wiggins has been trying to use a few of Ms. Hunstein's decisions to paint a false and misleading picture of her. To start with, he claims she is a Democrat. But nothing could be further from the truth. She has never been a member or an affiliate of the Democratic Party. And she has attracted the support of many of the top Republican lawyers in the state, as well as many of the best Democratic ones, who have rallied to her side against her opponent's over-the-top attempt to politicize this judicial election.

Wiggins has sharply criticized Justice Hunstein for voting with the majority of the court in 2001 to decide that electrocution constitutes a "cruel and unusual" way of administering the death penalty. Yet the court was bound to follow the precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court; and the state Legislature had already voted to change the method of capital punishment in the state to lethal injection. As it turns out, the change approved by the Georgia Supreme Court has actually increased the rate of executions in Georgia.

Justice Hunstein believes in deciding a case based on its merits, not based on a predetermined philosophy. And that is what she has done in the course of the hundreds of cases she has authored as a Supreme Court justice.

Moreover, Ms. Hunstein has been a true friend of the First Amendment and, as evidenced by her votes in a series of cases, one of the strongest defenders of open and transparent government who has ever sat on the state's Supreme Court. And there's little indication that would be true of her opponent, Wiggins, if he were to be elected.

Reliable reports indicate he is the candidate of a handful of deep-pocketed companies, trade associations and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

But if they disagree with Justice Hunstein's decisions, they should focus on persuading the Legislature to change the laws the court interprets, not try to politicize Georgia's judicial races.

We suspect that Justice Hunstein will soon be the target of a wave of attack ads on local TV and radio, courtesy of the Wiggins campaign and his wealthy out-of-state backers. Not only is such a campaign apt to leave Wiggins beholden to his backers and their interests, it also is guaranteed to reduce the respect with which the public now views the court.

Undermining the intent and integrity of our court system by making it possible for special interest groups to buy judgeships, or try to buy them, is an affront to our state and to the integrity of our judicial system. Modern-era Georgia has been known for its judicial independence and impartiality, and we don't think Georgians are ready to start turning back the clock.

The best way to prevent that in the long run is by changing the law or enacting stronger ethics standards regarding judicial elections. And the best way in the short run for the public to reinforce the integrity of the Georgia Supreme Court is by re-electing Justice Carol W. Hunstein.