20/20 Tonight Exposes Anti-Environmental Junkets for Judges

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

20/20 Tonight Exposes Anti-Environmental Junkets for Judges

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Apr. 6 -/E-Wire/-- A hidden-camera investigation by ABC's 20/20 to air tonight, April 6, (at 10 p.m. Eastern) reveals federal judges playing golf and lounging at a premier Tucson resort â paid for by an anti-environmental front group funded by corporations that often have cases before those very judges.

Every year, nearly 100 federal judges spend a week or more being "educated" in seminars held at resorts and scenic dude ranches, paid for not by the judiciary's education arm but by corporations and pro-business special interests.

Community Rights Counsel (CRC), a public interest law firm in Washington, D.C., credits 20/20 with providing visual documentation of how these corporate-funded junkets undermine the public's trust in the judiciary. CRC exposed these junkets in 1998 and last year issued a report documenting how they appear to be advancing the agenda of their corporate sponsors and undermining the American system of environmental protections.

"20/20's investigation should be the straw that breaks the camel's back," said CRC Executive Director Doug Kendall. "It will be clear to anyone watching that corporate interests are attempting to buy judicial influence with these junkets. It's time that the judiciary put a stop to this blatant corporate lobbying."

Junkets for judges have been written about for more than two years and have drawn widespread criticism from newspaper editorials, public interest organizations and judicial ethicists. Responding to this outcry, Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin last year introduced a bill to ban the junkets. They will reintroduce their bill in the coming weeks. Also, Environmental Working Group, an environmental watchdog organization, today wrote to Chief Justice Rehnquist renewing its call for an immediate ban on judicial junkets.

In July 2000, CRC published a report entitled Nothing for Free: How Private Judicial Seminars are Undermining Environmental Protections and Breaking the Public's Trust. The study â the most thorough investigation of the junkets' sponsors and participants â revealed a pattern of disturbing facts. Among them:

* In 10 of the past decade's most dramatic departures from established precedent, the judge striking down an environmental protection took part in at least one junket.

* In six of these cases, the judge attended the seminar while the case was pending.

* In at least three of these cases, the judge ruled in favor of a litigant bankrolled by the seminar's sponsors.

* In one of the decade's most infamous environmental rulings, a judge ruled to uphold habitat protection, attended a seminar, came back, switched his vote, and wrote an opinion striking down a central component of the Endangered Species Act.

CRC Executive Director Doug Kendall, who will be featured on 20/20, is available for interviews. He can be reached at 202/296-6889 ext. 3.

CRC's report, Nothing for Free, can be downloaded at www.TripsForJudges.org. A complete list of judges attending the Tucson seminar featured on 20/20 will also be online after the show airs on April 6.

Environmental Media Services

Jan Vertefeuille, EMS, 202/463-6670

http://www.tripsforjudges.org

http://http://www.ems.org

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