97: Fair Fight for a Fair Court

The 2016 elections are over. But what did we learn from the results? Over the past 11 months, Life of the Law’s team of reporters, editors and scholars have been taking a hard took at how money and an increase in spending by special interest groups has played a role in the outcome of elections for judges on state supreme courts. Ultimately, the outcomes of those races may impact our shared access to our state courts, courts that represent fairness in the law and the highest ideals of justice. We are presenting all five stories in our series A Fair Fight for a Fair Court -- with updates in two, hour-long special feature episodes on Life of the Law. The first hour is being presented on November 29th. Part two will be presented on December 13.  A Fair Fight for a Fair Court: Election Year Special - Part 1 was reported by Ashley Cleek and Jonathan Hirsch and edited by Annie Aviles and Nancy Mullane, with sound design and production by Shani Aviram and Tony Gannon. Our post production editors are Kirsten Jusewicz-Haidle, Rachael Cain and Alyssa Bernstein. We want to thank members of our Advisory Panel of Scholars and our Advisory Board Brittny Bottorff, Ellen Horne and Osagie Obasogie for their support. Howard Gelman and Katie McMurran were our engineers. Music in this episode is from Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to Michael Leachman, Director of State Fiscal Research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices