John Goodson: No Role Model (Editorial)

Last month, federal Judge Brian Miller asked and correctly answered an important question: “What is worse, a dope dealer talking on the phone about a dope deal or a dirty judge? There’s no question in society, a dirty judge is far more harmful to society than any dope dealer.”

Miller was talking about former Circuit Court Judge Michael Maggio, whom he sentenced to the maximum 10 years in prison for taking a bribe in exchange for reducing a $5.2 million jury award in a negligence lawsuit to $1 million.

Lawyers who abuse the court system to enrich themselves in class-action cases may not be as bad as dirty judges or dope dealers, but they’re bad. And federal Judge P.K. Holmes III, tipped to the lawyers’ tactics by Arkansas Business’ Mark Friedman, thinks they should be sanctioned for bad-faith dealings, though it will be after a June 10 hearing before we know what those sanctions will be.

One of those lawyers is John Goodson of Texarkana, husband of state Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson and a member of the University of Arkansas board of trustees.

Goodson has another distinction. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a strategy employed by John Goodson’s law firm to push defendants into settlements— a strategy that made Goodson rich — was illegal.

Judges and lawyers who pervert the judicial system for their enrichment undermine the public’s faith in that system. They should not be board members of the state’s university system.

It was former Gov. Mike Beebe who in 2011 appointed John Goodson to a 10-year term on the UA board. That was before we knew that the basis of his success was an illegal strategy.

Now we have a new governor, Asa Hutchinson. We understand he can be persuasive. We suggest that Gov. Hutchinson persuade John Goodson to resign from the UA board of trustees so that someone worthy of respect can fill the leadership void that exists as long as Goodson is a trustee.