Anti-Bird Drive Inspires Moves in Other States

California’s Rose Elizabeth Bird is not the only chief justice of a state Supreme Court who is in trouble. Leading jurists in three other states have also been targeted for defeat by well-financed conservative campaigns, which have assailed their judicial records on everything from the death penalty to drugs.

In North Carolina, a group calling itself “Citizens for a Conservative Court” is running television commercials and newspaper advertisements in an uphill campaign against a longtime justice who is running for chief justice. The organization has assailed his record on the death penalty, drug convictions and a case that has anti-abortion overtones.

Ohio’s chief justice, a Democrat campaigning for a third six-year term, is embroiled in a rancorous debate over his acceptance of campaign money from union locals linked with organized crime.

And in New Jersey, the court’s liberal chief justice barely survived a reconfirmation vote in the state Senate recently after senators upset with his record on death penalty and abortion cases challenged him on residency requirements.

“The Bird race helped inspire this campaign,” said Keith Clark, a businessman heading the conservative campaign in North Carolina against the chief justice candidate, James Exum. “The first time people called me about heading up this effort, they handed me an article from California about the Bird race.”

Bird, the chief target of a massive media blitz in California focusing on court votes overturning death sentences, is trailing by a 2-1 margin in her judicial race, according to some statewide polls.

Conservatives in other states are hopeful that their efforts will be as effective.

Record on Death Penalty

The North Carolina campaign against Exum, 51, who was first appointed to the court in 1975, has focused mainly on Exum’s record on the death penalty, even though doctors and business interests unhappy with Exum’s votes on liability cases have largely financed the effort. Both sides estimate that a total of between $500,000 and $1 million will be spent.

Clark said the Bird race showed people around the nation that “you can mount a significant race against a chief justice on the basis of the death penalty.”

In North Carolina, state justices are elected in partisan races every eight years. Traditionally, the justice with the most tenure serves as chief justice, a job that pays $75,000 and includes responsibility for the entire state court system.

But Republican Gov. James G. Martin ignored precedent earlier this year and elevated Justice Rhoda Billings, a Republican whom he put on the court earlier this year, when the chief’s slot became vacant. Democrat Exum, the most senior member of the seven-justice court, will run against Billings in November.

Dissents Cited

“In 24 cases where the Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty, Exum has dissented 18 times, eight of the times alone,” Clark charged.

Clark and his backers are also attacking Exum for voting against upholding several drug case convictions that were being challenged on grounds of entrapment. Clark also cites Exum’s vote in favor of a plaintiff who sued her doctor for malpractice after she gave birth to a child with Down’s syndrome. The doctor had failed to recommend amniocentesis, which might have identified the problem during the pregnancy and allowed time for an abortion.

Rodney Maddox, who is directing the campaign supporting the five Democratic nominees for the court, says the opponents have distorted Exum’s record, embarrassed the five Republican court candidates and offended the public. Maddox predicted that Exum, who has been endorsed by most of the state bar officials, will easily beat Billings in November.

“Some of this stuff is really lurid--not just the death penalty,” he complained. “They do death, rapes and drugs. Every time you guys out West start talking about the death penalty, it just excites them more here and they go out and have another press conference.”

Campaign Contributions

As embattled as Bird in California is Chief Justice Frank Celebrezze in Ohio. Long at odds with the business community and the state Republican Party, Celebrezze, a Democrat, has been embroiled for nearly two weeks in a furor over his acceptance of $10,500 in campaign contributions from political action committees representing two union locals that law enforcement officials have linked to organized crime.

Details on the campaign gifts from Cleveland Locals 310 and 860 of the Laborers Union of North America were published Oct. 12 in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Celebrezze at first refused to discuss the unions’ support of him, prompting his Republican opponent, Appeals Court Judge Thomas Moyer, to declare that the only reason for “organized crime” to contribute is that “they’re looking for influence.”

The contributions have become the principal issue in a bitter and well-financed campaign. According to financial reports filed Thursday, the Celebrezze campaign has raised $1.45 million and Moyer has collected $671,000.

Celebrezze’s campaign manager, James Gravelle, has promised to give the union PAC donations back if it can be demonstrated that the PACs are in fact controlled by criminals. Meanwhile, he said, the money would be set aside and not spent.

Narrowly Approved

In New Jersey, the confirmation of Chief Justice Robert Wilentz was narrowly approved by the state Senate in July after opponents charged that he actually lived in New York. Wilentz, who maintained a residence in New Jersey, spends much of the year in Manhattan to be near his children and his wife, who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment in New York for cancer.

But the leaders of the Senate effort to oust him attacked his court record as much as his residence.

State Sen. John H. Dorsey, a Republican who helped lead the Senate fight against Wilentz, complained that the state court has failed to rule on the state’s death penalty law, enacted in 1982. John Samergan, deputy press secretary to New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, said some Wilentz opponents cited his pro-choice stand on abortion during Senate arguments. “Wilentz is a red flag to the right wing,” he said.

In winning confirmation, which is required after a justice has served seven years, Wilentz pledged to spend more time in New Jersey after his wife’s condition improves or else will resign.