by Glynn Wilson
If there was ever any doubt that Karl Rove’s corporate GOP politics dominates the legal landscape of Alabama, those doubts should now be put to rest once and for all. The recent reversal of a $3.6 billion jury award against Exxon Mobil for defrauding the taxpayers of Alabama by the state Supreme Court, now dominated by Republicans elected because of Rove’s political consulting, proves why big business has been so intent to fund a Republican takeover of the courts for years.
Need we remind readers that the case against Exxon Mobile, the largest and most profitable mega-corporation in the history of the world, was brought in the courts by the administration of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman?
Do you think a few cocktails have been hoisted over in Houston, Texas, since Siegelman was ousted as governor by voter fraud in 2002? Can you imagine the celebration this year as Siegelman was sentenced to prision, while the Karl Rove state Supreme Court rolled back the biggest jury verdict in state history?
Why, it’s as if the South finally won the Civil War after all these years, or something. The Mint Julips must just be flowing down in Texasland, while here in hidebound Alabama, we seem content to take it up the ass.
At least the Alabama bureau of the Associated Press managed to crank out a reaction story today from the jury foreman in the case, who said he was “completely shocked” by the court’s judgment.
“I couldn’t sleep that night,” Joey King, a Montgomery elementary school teacher, told the AP in a telephone interview. “I was completely shocked. I thought there might be a few siding with Exxon.” But he did not think it would be a majority.
The state Supreme Court ruled last week that the state failed to prove fraud against Exxon Mobil, in spite of a unanimous jury verdict that said the state did prove fraud. And by a party line vote of 8-1, the court threw out all of the punitive damages in the case awarded by the jury, leaving only $51.9 million in compensatory damages for “breach of contract.”
King said oil company documents presented at the trial showed corporate officials treated Alabama “like we were too dumb to catch” the underpayments, and the jury was convinced the state’s attorneys proved fraud.
The jury decided Exxon Mobil had intentionally underpaid the state for royalties from natural gas wells drilled in state-owned waters along the Alabama Gulf Coast and awarded the state $11.9 billion originally, but that amount was reduced to $3.6 billion by the trial judge.
In Supreme Court Justice Harold See’s opinion, a judge who was elected to the court with Karl Rove’s help, the documents that impressed the jury in the case did not impress him, he said.
Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, the court’s lone Democrat, cast the only dissenting vote to allow the jury verdict to stand.
Republican Governor Bob Riley could ask the court to reconsider its decision, but don’t count on it, since Riley also owes his election to Karl Rove.
It just goes to show you that in Bush’s America, you get the justice you pay for. Remind me again why we elect judges in this state at all?
The idea of Jeffersonian Democracy was for the judiciary branch of government to be as removed as possible from mere politics. In Bush’s Christo-Fascist America, even the courthouse is for sale.
What say we throw the money changers out of the courthouses? What would Jesus do?
AP: Jury Foreman Shocked by Exxon Mobil Verdict Being Slashed
Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham slammed the decision in a press release.
A decade of Karl Rove judicial politics during the 1990’s brought tens of millions of dollars from shell groups into these Republican judicial campaigns from corporate contributors such as ExxonMobil, Turnham said.
“Big out of state business unleashed massive financial power in the 2004 and 2006 Supreme Court races on behalf of Republican candidates and the fruit of this can be seen in last week’s lopsided decision against the people of Alabama,” he said. “Republicans on the Supreme Court are themselves addicted to big oil and last week became accomplices in denying Alabama’s citizens real justice by their refusal to award any punitive damages against ExxonMobil for the fraud it perpetrated against Alabama taxpayers.”
As oil approaches $100 per barrel, consumers are preparing to pay record gasoline and heating bills this winter, and Turnham hopes the verdict and other pro-industry decisions in recent years will not be lost on voters in 2008.
“Alabama taxpayers are tired of corporate behemoths building record-breaking profits every year at their expense,” he said. “It is time to replace the corporate board of Republican justices on the Supreme Court with Democratic jurists that understand Alabama’s highest court is not a tool to protect corporate interests.”
“While I respect the judicial process, the court, and the rule of law,” Turnham said, “I would be derelict if I did not remind voters that big corporate money, Republican politics, and pre-determined outcomes have overtaken the Alabama Supreme Court and our political judicial races. Republicans have taken the court into a ‘consumer hell’ and have exorcized the notion of ‘justice for all’ into a realm of ‘those with the most gold get the most favorable rulings’. By avoiding more than $3 billion in punitive damage awards for defrauding our state of oil revenues, ExxonMobil and the Alabama Republican Party have laughed in the face of our people and declared the state’s highest court for sale to the highest bidder.”
