On March 4 in “By Treating Recusal Motions as a Game, Lawyers are Eroding Public Confidence in our Courts,” Washington Legal Foundation’s Chief Counsel Rich Samp wrote about the corrosive effect of plaintiffs’ lawyers’ demands that unfriendly judges be recused from hearing their cases. Much of the commentary centered around the multiple motions plaintiffs’ lawyers in a case called Price v. Philip Morris filed to recuse Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier from participating in the lawyers’ request to re-open that court’s 2005 decision.
As reported yesterday in Legal Newsline, the state high court denied the most recent request to disqualify Justice Karmeier from the Price case on March 11. The Court has yet to rule on the request to re-open the case.