State chief justice accepts dean’s apology
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NEW ORLEANS — In an extraordinary letter, the dean of Tulane University’s School of Law has apologized to the seven elected justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court for a recent article alleging that their decisions were unduly influenced by campaign contributions.
In a letter dated Sept. 10, Tulane Dean Lawrence Ponoroff expressed “sincere regret” for the article published in the Tulane Law Review under the title: “The Louisiana Supreme Court in Question: An Empirical and Statistical Study of Campaign Money on the Judicial Function.”
Ponoroff said the authors of the article, Tulane law Professor Vernon Palmer and John Levendis, an assistant professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, advised the law review of “numerous errors” in their article — following a critique by New Orleans lawyers E. Phelps Gay and Kevin R. Tully.
Some of the mistakes were recounted in the Gay and Tully critique “and some not,” Ponoroff wrote. The law review will list all of the errors on its Web site, the dean added.
“(B)oth personally and on behalf of the law school, I hope you will accept my apologies for the publication in our law review of an article based in part on faulty data,” Ponoroff said.
In a statement, retiring Chief Justice Pascal Calogero said he accepted the dean’s apology.
“The Dean’s letter confirms our belief that this purported ‘scientific’ study was fatally flawed,” Calogero wrote.
However, Ponoroff also said that the impact of campaign contributions and judicial elections on the courts are “appropriate issues” for research and “public examination.” He extended a previous offer of a public forum on the topics at Tulane’s law school.
“I have no idea whether the court is interested in that (proposal),” spokeswoman Valerie Willard said.
Tulane spokesman Michael Strecker said Tuesday that Ponoroff would have no further comment on his letter to the court.
Two justices are up for re-election Oct. 4, including Justice Catherine Kimball, the apparent successor to Calogero, who retires Dec. 31.
In a letter dated Sept. 10, Tulane Dean Lawrence Ponoroff expressed “sincere regret” for the article published in the Tulane Law Review under the title: “The Louisiana Supreme Court in Question: An Empirical and Statistical Study of Campaign Money on the Judicial Function.”
Ponoroff said the authors of the article, Tulane law Professor Vernon Palmer and John Levendis, an assistant professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, advised the law review of “numerous errors” in their article — following a critique by New Orleans lawyers E. Phelps Gay and Kevin R. Tully.
Some of the mistakes were recounted in the Gay and Tully critique “and some not,” Ponoroff wrote. The law review will list all of the errors on its Web site, the dean added.
“(B)oth personally and on behalf of the law school, I hope you will accept my apologies for the publication in our law review of an article based in part on faulty data,” Ponoroff said.
In a statement, retiring Chief Justice Pascal Calogero said he accepted the dean’s apology.
“The Dean’s letter confirms our belief that this purported ‘scientific’ study was fatally flawed,” Calogero wrote.
However, Ponoroff also said that the impact of campaign contributions and judicial elections on the courts are “appropriate issues” for research and “public examination.” He extended a previous offer of a public forum on the topics at Tulane’s law school.
“I have no idea whether the court is interested in that (proposal),” spokeswoman Valerie Willard said.
Tulane spokesman Michael Strecker said Tuesday that Ponoroff would have no further comment on his letter to the court.
Two justices are up for re-election Oct. 4, including Justice Catherine Kimball, the apparent successor to Calogero, who retires Dec. 31.
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