A Very OK Podcast
Episode 32: “The 1965 Oklahoma Supreme Court Scandal”
January 16, 2024
Episode Transcript
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson. I’m the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, and with me, as always, is Dr. Bob Blackburn. Bob, it’s always good to be with you. How are you today?
Dr. Bob Blackburn: Doing great, Trait. I’m adjusting to the cold weather, reluctantly. The older I get, the less I like cold weather. But I guess I’ll survive it.
Thompson: Well, I have to say that, you know, growing up in Texas, and now in Oklahoma, I’m not a tremendous fan of the cold weather myself, and it always sort of takes me by surprise when it comes, because it seems like we always have a fairly warm November, and then December can be a little cold. But once you get to January and February in Oklahoma seem like the worst months for cold.
Blackburn: Yeah, the only upside of that is over the years, Debbie brings us up all the time, we typically walked and hiked the Wichita Mountains in February. We would go more because no rattlesnakes. Ticks aren’t out yet, and not many people. And so over the years, we’ve been hiking the Wichita since 1974, and one of my favorite places in the world. But February is generally, and when she was walking more, we would go down there two or three times a month, just spend the day.
Thompson: Yeah, the no rattlesnakes thing in the Wichitas, that’s a benefit right there, because I know if you start in April and any time from April to October, you’re going to be, you’re going to be saying hello to a few rattlesnakes out there, most likely. But that is an incredible part of our state. One of the interesting things is, I watched The American Buffalo documentary that Ken Burns did, and the Wichita Mountains played a really big part in that documentary that he did. And so, I mean, just this is just for free for everyone, but go check out that documentary. It was really good.
Blackburn: Yeah, it is very well done.
Thompson: Well, today we have a great topic to talk about, and I have to, give a shout out to my friend Judge Thad Balkman because he texted me a few months ago and said, Trait, you have to do a podcast on the Supreme Court scandal. And I said, okay, I’ll put it on the list as I sit down and make our list, usually about November of every year of the topics that we’re going to cover. I remembered Judge Balkman and what he had said. And so here we are, Judge, this one is for you. Thanks for the suggestion. This is a great topic to talk about. This has all the things that you would want. It has tax evasion. It has intrigue. It has bribery. Anything that you would want in a podcast about Oklahoma history, and so we’re going to talk about this one today. But before we get started, Bob, we haven’t done this in a little while. I think we should talk about some movies.
Blackburn: Oh, absolutely.
Thompson: So let’s talk about movies that have to do with courtroom drama, courtroom intrigue. Do you have any favorites?
Blackburn: Well, and too, especially with today, we’re talking about this combination of both courtroom drama and culture. You know, the culture always defines our institutions, whether it’s in South America or United States or Europe. Well, two that really pull on the culture and how justice plays out in the courtroom: you have to start with To Kill a Mockingbird Probably one of the great novels of all time. In fact, it’s on my bookshelf. I don’t keep many novels around, but that’s one. I reread it every few years, still brings tears to my eyes. A moving book and the movie, Gregory Peck has to be the father figure for anybody after you watch that. Like, this is a great man. Why don’t I know him? And I feel like I do know him. And, Mr. Finch, I just, you know, salute him in watching that, fighting the culture of that very southern town with racism running rampant, basically convicting a man that everyone knew was innocent. But yet it wasn’t the culture. And yet he had the courage to stand up to that pressure, knowing that he and his family would pay a price for that. He was willing to do what was right, and that always inspires me.
Thompson: Yeah, I have to agree with you. This is a book that I read from time to time as well, and I’m just since you mentioned it, I’m exactly like you. I don’t keep much fiction around. I usually devote my reading energies to nonfiction because I’m constantly wanting to learn something new, but the way she creates the character of Atticus Finch and the person. I’ve looked to him, as a father inspiration figure of the way he parents his kids, you know, has been an inspiration to me. And I do have to say that I have not read whatever the sequel was that came after. I know they found Harper Lee, they found, you know, some notes that she had done in a sequel. I have not read it because I didn’t want to spoil the image of Atticus in my own head. Now, I will say I’ve seen the Aaron Sorkin version of his kind of rewriting of the play, and that’s pretty interesting to see. But To Kill Mockingbird is a fantastic book and movie. Also, for you trivia buffs out there, this is the first movie that Robert Duvall appears in. He plays Boo Radley, and this is his very first movie, so that’s pretty fascinating.
Blackburn: Great actor.
Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. So, well, speaking of Aaron Sorkin, I’ll talk about one of my favorite courtroom dramas, and that’s A Few Good Men. And this movie came out in 1992. It has Tom Cruise in it, Jack Nicholson in it, Demi Moore, just an incredible cast of characters. I mean, Kiefer Sutherland, I mean, you just, Kevin Pollak, just a fantastic group. And this is, you know, this is probably where the the phrase “Code Red” entered into the lexicon of American pop culture. But the whole plot there centers around two Marines who were ordered to give a Code Red, which is a hazing exercise to a Marine who wasn’t performing as well as he should have been performing, and that young Marine ends up dying. And the two men who did the Code Red end up going out on trial for it. But of course, what everybody loves about that movie is the scene at the end where it’s Tom cruise against Jack Nicholson, who plays Colonel Jessep, who is this up and coming person in the Marines and is going places. And Tom Cruise is just this lowly JAG officer and, you know, that sneering performance. I mean, Nicholson, I can’t imagine.
Blackburn: Should have won an Academy Award for that. I can’t imagine anybody else playing that part with Jack Nicholson sneering and saying, “We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s going to do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can even fathom.”
Blackburn: That’s a good quote, but that is a great movie. And what I like about that too, is that the courage of the judge. You know, it’s not easy for one officer to allow the almost the intimidation of another officer in that. But yet the judge in that case, I don’t remember the actor’s name, but he stood his ground and he did what was right.
Thompson: Yeah.
Blackburn: And that always inspires me in these kind of movies. One of the interesting things I’ve read about A Few Good Men is typically when actors are doing a scene, like a courtroom scene, you know, the actor, like Jack Nicholson, will come in, and he’ll do his lines, and then they have to change the cameras around and, you know, they have to film the other angles of it, and then it’ll typically be a stand in. Someone else that that’s doing the line so that they could get the coverage of like Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise. But one thing they said is that Jack Nicholson did that monologue over and over and over again for the other coverage, even though he wasn’t on camera for it, so that they could get the right reactions to that. I thought that was pretty cool.
Blackburn: He is intimidating. Yeah, he is a great actor. And, you know, probably of his generation, probably the greatest.
Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. Do you have another one you like?
Blackburn: I do, and a little different, more of a comic. But My Cousin Vinny and Joe Pesci is in that and, of course, Marisa Tomei. That’s where I fell in love with her. And she is just so spunky and so smart, and he does not give her the credit, but yet she comes up with the winning strategies and kind of keeps him on the straight and narrow, and the judge, and I don’t recall the actor’s name.
Thompson: Fred Gwynne.
Blackburn: Fred Gwynne, he played in a TV series from my time, before you were born called Car 54, Where Are You? Which was this silly little sitcom done on television. But he’s been a great actor over the years, and he played that part so well. And being confronted with this New York kid and just, it’s a great comedy. And again, it kind of represents the culture of a little town like that.
Thompson: Yeah. Joe Pesci, incredible in that movie as well. I think that’s, I’m not a car guy. So that’s the movie where I learned what pause attraction was. And then, of course, that scene where Joe Pesci, his character decides, says, “Can I treat her as a hostile witness?” And she says, “You think I’m hostile now? Just where do we get home!” Yeah. That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Well, Bob, let’s get into our material to talk about today. And, you know, we’re in the mid 1960s, so the Supreme Court scandal we’re talking about today centers around three Supreme Court justices, and the justices are N. S. Corn, N. B. Johnson, and Earl Welch. And it was about a culture that had grown up around, Supreme Court justices had to run for office, and so they had to solicit campaign contributions. And then it became a “pay-to-play” incident. So in 1964, Judge N. S. Corn plead nolo contendere to a charge of income tax evasion. Judge Corn was 80 years old at this time. Now he was retired from full time on the Supreme Court, but he was kind of, and I forget what the term is that they use, but he was someone that they would bring in for select cases if they needed an extra judge at that particular period of time. And so he’s sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1964. When he’s in prison, he gives testimony to federal officials saying, hey, by the way, I was taking bribes. Justice N. B. Johnson was taking bribes, and Justice Earl Welch was taking bribes. And so this kind of opens up a huge scandal. Obviously, justice is supposed to be blind. Justice is not supposed to be for sale. And so, this was a big scandal. And, you know, talking about, I think it’s important to talk about what’s going on in Oklahoma at this time. I kind of consider the ’50s and ’60s is when Oklahoma government starts to grow up a little bit, but I thought it’d be great if we could set the context for this era in Oklahoma state government.
Blackburn: Yeah. The fact that there were only two Supreme Court justices impeached doesn’t mean there weren’t other incidents of bribery. Just that they’re the ones who who got caught, and this really comes out of partly the Oklahoma political culture. And it would be similar to a lot of rural states, especially in the mid-South, Louisiana, even Texas, and other states, but in the South, and I mean, if I was thinking about how I could phrase this, but I think the best description is it was a good ol’ boy network from the very beginning, and you have to go back to the Constitutional Convention, again in 1906 and 1907. Oklahoma is a rural state. Oklahoma City, in 1907, is only about 50,000 people. Tulsa is probably less than 20. And so you have two small cities, villages really, trade territories that are so ingrained with rural Oklahoma. It is a rural state, and the people who had come here have a distrust of big government. They have a distrust of money, whether you’re a banker or a railroad official or a businessman. Don’t trust those people, and you don’t trust the people, the politicians of the Gilded Age of the 1890s, and you get the populist reaction of that nationally. But here in Oklahoma, with all that distrust, then you throw in the Scots-Irish culture of local is better in every instance, is that out of the Constitution, almost all elected officials, or all executive officials, in government are elected by the people.
Thompson: Right.
Blackburn: You even have mining inspectors elected by the people as if the people can the judge who’s going to be the best mining, the assistant mining inspector, the auditor, goes on and on, and so as little centralized authority as possible, and any time you do that and you spread the influence around, a lot of people from a lot of parts of the state, you open the gates to abuse of that authority. So, bribes; we see it most clearly. As the reform effort started gaining momentum in the 1930s, it finally peaks in the 1980s with the county commissioner scandal, which is probably the greatest example. We’ve done a podcast on that.
Thompson: Right. We have talked about that. But really, that fighting back against that good ol’ boy, local is better, even if they’re a crook. They’re our crooks. They’re from our valley. We know them. Good family. Yeah, they took a bribe. So what? So you’re not going to be prosecuted. The local judge is no way is going to convict them. And so that filters up from the county level to the legislature to the Supreme Court. And it really is a system that’s out of control in a lot of ways. Fortunately, we had people who said we can do better, starting in the 1930s, one of my favorites, E. W. Marland. Founder of Conoco, Marland Oil before that, becomes governor, elected in 1934, takes office in ’35. He says we got to reform government. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol in 1937 is an example. How can we put higher standards on the law enforcement community, which is really where justice begins. You can write a law, what’s illegal, what’s legal, and you can adjudicate it, but in the middle, you’ve got to enforce it. And if people aren’t enforcing it, the system breaks down. And it had been. County sheriffs, you know, sitting in the bootleggers’ office playing cards, it was a very common sight. Seeing the county sheriff as a kid. And I’m not going to say what county, but go with my dad to an Elks Club with a slot machine with him giving me dimes to play the slot machine. There’s the county sheriff at the next table. That’s just the way it was.
Thompson: Yeah, looked the other way.
Blackburn: It would look the other way. Get along, go along. But the reform movement gains momentum in 1940, ’41. People vote to really take the corruption out of the higher education system and create the State Regents for Higher Education. And at that point, it’s constitutional. It’s separated somewhat from the political process. And it’s structured as such where it had higher standards, could attract better people, and you get more stability in higher education from the 1940s on. Then we see it again and repeal of prohibition. We had a corrupt system, and, I’ll implicate my dad here, statute of limitations are gone. Highway patrolman— he said it was very common that they were told what bootleggers to pop, which ones let go. And so that was just the way it was, even if the highway patrol, and he said they’d take a load of booze down to the county sheriff, and before everyone left, sheriff would be passing out, you know, whiskey bottles saying, we don’t need all this for evidence. We just need one case. And so that’s just the way it was. Go along, get along.
Thompson: And Governor J. Howard Edmondson said, you know what? If we’re going to have prohibition, we’re really going to have it. You know, we’re losing out on a ton of revenue. So he started cracking down on it. And that’s when everybody started to say, you know what? Having legal alcohol wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Blackburn: Exactly. And so, but that’s part of this whole pushback against the good ol’ boy system, this localized that provides people the opportunity to be tempted, and temptation is a terrible thing for people. And as they’re tempted and they take one little thing and say, well, maybe that wasn’t so bad. I think it got. Well, this is okay, because they’re really good ol’ boys. We don’t need to put them in jail anyway. And you take that reform effort into the 1960s with reapportionment, and the control that the good ol’ boy system had in Oklahoma is really encapsulated in this one story. In our Constitution, it says that we will reapportion legislative districts every ten years. So, once you do the decennial census, you go in, and you rework it. So, equal representation in the legislature. Well, in 1910, ’20, ’30, ’40, ’50 and ’60, legislature fails to reapportion. Just said nah, we’re not going to do it. By 19, early 1960s, it took 80 voters in Oklahoma and Tulsa Counties to have the same representation as one person from the Oklahoma Panhandle. And so the system was out. In that case, the federal government got involved, and the federal judges said, wait a minute, you’re not following your own constitution, and then a lawsuit finally forced reapportionment in the 1960s, that would be a turning point in Oklahoma political history. But again, it’s an expression of pushing back against the good ol’ boy system, where everyone has their piece of the pie. Go along, get along, and which had seeped up to the Supreme Court justices we’re talking about today. All gone under the bench in the 1930s, when that rural system was still very much the way things were done. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray goes back and is elected governor again in 1930, partly because the people want that. They hate the banks that are repossessing land. They hate the railroads because they think they’re gouging them at harvest time. And they have this fear of centralized authority. And so they, the voters of Oklahoma got what they wanted up to this time. But there have been people in our history like Marland and Bill Price and others who said, wait a minute, we can’t tolerate this anymore. We can do better.
Thompson: And there’s some great characters in this story who definitely felt that way. You know, Henry Bellmon was certainly one of them. G. T. Blankenship, Justice William Berry, who kind of cracks this thing wide open. And so, getting into the details here, in January of 1965, a federal judge named Stephen Chandler gets alerted that there is this report out there of Justice Corn’s testimony to federal officials. And he calls up his friend, Justice William Berry, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court not too long before this, and he gives him a copy of the testimony. Now, nobody has this at this particular point in time. And now, Justice Berry is kind of wondering, what in the heck does he do with all of this? I’d have to go back to 1964 a little bit because in 1964, Justice Welch was convicted of tax evasion. And, you know, kind of for the same reasons and basically how they convicted you for tax evasion, they went back and looked at all your records and said, you spent X plus two amount of money and you only earned X amount of money. So where did it all come from? And that’s how they got you for tax evasion. But what Justice Chandler was unsure of, and what William Berry was unsure of at the time, was how do we start to get this out in the public that we have a big, big problem here in our Supreme Court? And in fact, Justice Chandler said to Judge Berry, “You know, there are some people out there who want to sweep this scandal under the rug because they don’t want to bring shame on the court. In addition, you’ve got some powerful legislators out there who want to squelch any court clean up because they like things the way they are.”
Blackburn: Good ol’ boys pushing back.
Thompson: And so, there were a couple of cases that the Supreme Court had handled. One was Selected Investments Corp versus the Oklahoma Tax Commission, and one was Marshall versus Adams. And in both cases, people involved with those cases had given bribery money. In the case of Selected Investment Corp, Hugh Carroll, who was the head of that company, paid $150,000 for a favorable opinion. The Tax Commission had ruled that they owed $500,000 in back taxes. And, well, I guess if you pay $150 to avoid a $500 settlement, maybe that’s good business. But, and in that case, Justice Corn went to Justice Welch and Justice Johnson and paid them each $7,500 out of $150 and then kept the rest for himself. And so what Justice Berry is trying to figure out is, how do I get this out into the public? And he has a little bit of a dilemma because he doesn’t want to bring any scrutiny upon himself as far as libelous, you know, if you can’t get this report out there, you can’t, you have to be able to prove what’s going on. And so he decides that the best way for this information to get out there is a legislator needs to say it, because a legislator has certain immunity, especially when they’re speaking from the floor about the things that they can say. And so eventually he gets to his friend, not his friend, because they were of two opposite parties, but they settled on G. T. Blankenship, and G. T. Blankenship had been elected to the House of Representatives in 1960, and by 1965, he’s the minority leader in the House, which, as a Republican, you have not much power at all, except maybe a little more power now, because Henry Bellmon, the governor, is a Republican. So G. T. Blankenship decides that he is going to get up on the House floor, and he’s going to announce that this bribery scandal is going on in the Supreme Court. Now, one of the interesting things about reading about this is Justice Chandler, Justice Berry, G. T. Blankenship, they were all a little bit afraid to do this because they were afraid that somebody was going to basically kill them for speaking out about this. And in fact, G. T. Blankenship’s wife, G. T. Blankenship, was 36 years old at this time, and his wife implored him, don’t do this. I love this quote that he comes back with, because these are the types of people that you want in public office. His quote was, “I know, but one of the reasons you run for public office is to perform a service that needs to be accomplished.”
Blackburn: He’s one of my heroes as well. In fact G. T. is from Oklahoma City, Classen High School grad, OU, OU Law, serves in the air force honorably. He’s in the JAG, so he’s a judge advocate there and comes back and has this urge for public. A lot of younger people might remember him as an OU regent. That is probably his last office he held, but a long, distinguished career. He’s the first one who’s got on board with a new dome for the Capitol.
Thompson: I didn’t know that.
Blackburn: Goes back before that. During Henry Bellmon’s administration, G. T., and the little lady who pushed that for so long, the name will come to me.
Thompson: Oh, I know who you’re talking about, but I’m blanking as well.
Blackburn: Maybe it’ll come to us, but G. T. was a public voice, and I remember they did a model of it, and I went, I was there at the time. G. T. was really, so G. T. was a little bit of a contrarian to a degree, a lot of honor and a willingness to serve. And he’s one of my favorites in Oklahoma history.
Thompson: So January 21, 1965, he gets up on the House floor, and he starts making his speech and basically telling everybody everything that’s going on. There was a lot of uproar. How do you know this information? Who’s giving you, you know, who’s giving you this information? And so it caused a big deal. Now the speaker of the house at the time is J. D. McCarty, who would go on to have his own set of issues. He’d be convicted for tax evasion himself not too long after this. But in his speech, Blankenship says, “This document reveals a story so sordid, sickening, and discouraging, its contents must be revealed for the good of us all.” In other words, you can’t address the sickness unless you’re willing to admit you have it, and then to go and take care of it. And so he filed a resolution that called for the Judiciary Committee to investigate these matters and get back within 60 days. J. D. McCarty kind of, you know, I guess if you’ve seen the movie Dodgeball, “Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge,” is the five rules of dodgeball. And he did that for quite a while trying to press this scandal and not really address it until he really had to. In the meantime, Judge Johnson, N. B. Johnson, which stands, I mean, this is a pretty great name. Napoleon Bonaparte Johnson. And he had not been implicated in tax evasion. And he is implicated in this report as well. And he makes out for a while of being innocent of the charges.
And so, finally, the House of Representatives decides that they’re going to start holding hearings on this through the committee. In fact, a special committee was created by the speaker, the Committee on Research and Investigation, to be able to handle these matters. And the House finally starts having hearings in March of 1965, and some information comes out. And I think this is pretty interesting information. They had analyzed eight cases that the Supreme Court had had. In six of the eight cases, Judge Welch, Judge Corn, and Judge Johnson voted the same way. In two of the cases, Welch did not vote because they involve relatives, but his appointed replacement voted the same way Welch and Corn did. In seven of the eight cases, two or three of the trio were in the winning majority, and only one case did Corn’s vote differ from Johnson and Welch’s, and in that instance it didn’t change the outcome of the case any. So they start to put together this evidence that there is something fishy going on, and after they hear all of their testimony in the committee, there are articles of impeachment that are filed against Justice Welch and Justice Johnson. Three counts against Welch: one of taking a $7,500 bribe in the Selected Investments case, another a $2,500 bribe in the 1957 case involving the oil lease, and his previous, his previous conviction for income tax evasion. So those are the three counts. And Judge Johnson was charged with two articles of impeachment, taking the $7,500 bribe for the Selected Investments case and a $2,500 bribe in the oil lease case. And so those are your five articles of impeachment that come before the House, and Welch ends up saving himself. He resigns, but he does it under protest. He says, “I want to say that I do not admit, but emphatically deny guilt of any of the rumors, published affidavits, and hearsay evidence which had been circulated under the guise of news and the reports of public hearings.” And this is where I think it’s important to talk about impeachment. Early in our state’s history, impeachment was almost done for sport. I mean it was, in the 1920s, we had two governors that were impeached.
Blackburn: They were convicted, and others were impeached as well, but just not convicted.
Thompson: Right, exactly. But this is, this seems to be a more serious case. And so I think it’s important for everyone out there to understand the process for impeachment. So, and we’ve become a little bit familiar with that in our current time because we’ve had a couple of presidents impeached within the last 30 years. Clinton was impeached over the Monica Lewinsky affair back in the late ’90s, and then Trump was impeached twice, but impeached doesn’t mean convicted. And so there’s two parts to this process. One is that the House of Representatives votes on impeachment, but the Senate is where the trial happens. And if you’re not convicted on in the Senate on the trial, then you get to stay in office. Of course, you’ve got this cloud hanging over you for impeachment, but you don’t have to leave office. You’re not convicted. But it takes two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict. It’s not a majority vote. And so the House votes, for the impeachment against Justice Johnson by 90 to 6 on the first count and 88 to 8 on the second count of impeachment.
So now we go over to the Senate. Well, typically in the Senate, the Supreme Court justice is the one, chief justice is the one who presides over the trial. In this case, he recused himself because this was a Supreme Court issue. And so we get Roy Grantham, who was a senator out of Ponca City. He’s going to be the judge in the trial. And so, the accused is allowed to have attorneys. And so Justice Johnson has his attorneys who are representing him, and it’s just like a court case. It is examination and cross-examination and presenting of evidence. And the judge rules on what questions can be asked and what questions can’t be asked. And it’s pretty interesting because you got this judicial process, but it’s a political process as well. And so this is pretty fascinating to me. So they start the trial in May of 1965, and they go through and they call, you know, Justice Johnson calls character witnesses who said he’s an honest guy. He’s been my friend for years. And, but when it gets time to start examining his bank accounts, that’s where things kind of fall apart for Justice Johnson and say, well, what about this money? You know, and Hugh Carroll comes on board, the person from Selected Investments, he testifies that he gave $150,000 to Corn, and then Justice Corn comes and testifies, and he testifies that he gives the money to Justice Johnson and Justice Welch, and that really is kind of the nail in the coffin for him. And so, when it comes time to vote, both of the articles of impeachment passed 32 to 15, and we end up with an impeachment there. And that is the stain on the record, if you will. That is the 1965 Supreme Court scandal. And it is certainly a black mark in Oklahoma history, but it’s an important part of Oklahoma history because it leads to necessary reform.
Blackburn: It does. And I first heard about this in detail from one of my political mentors, Denzil D. Garrison from Bartlesville, America, grew up in Norman. Denny was on the Historical Society Board of Directors for probably 30 years and president in the early ’80s, when I first started learning, and then he was my political guide for the next 30 years of my career here at the OHS. And Denny was one of the prosecutors in the Senate. He was among the minority, and there were only a few Republicans in the Senate then. I think he could count them on less than two hands. And he was one of the prosecutors because he was a trial attorney. And he told me stories about that, and he said, yeah, they’re guilty. And he said it went a lot deeper than that, but they didn’t have enough evidence to keep going. But Denny was an eyewitness to that. I wish I had sat him down at the time and said, Denny, let’s get this on tape. You know, one of those moments, and now Denny is gone. But he had a role in that, like Stephen Chandler, who I always admired as a federal judge, a little bit of a Wild Catter among. He was kind of alone on a lot of decisions. He was kind of a loner in a lot of ways on the bench. But I met him, and he gave me a tour of Oklahoma City one time. So I met Stephen Chandler. His older brother was a partner with G. A. Nichols when they got in the real estate business in 1918. But Chandler, Blankenship, Denny, Henry Bellmon, I think, has a role in all of this. The fact that they were all part of changing history and setting the stage for what we have now, and I think we’ve had a great system since then. It was like a wake-up call. And people said, wait a minute, is this the way it’s been? Maybe we can do better. And asking that question, it comes about, and I think our guest today is going to shed some more light on that.
Thompson: Yeah. And before we get to our guest, I do want to mention, because I looked up, you know, Justice William Berry’s history a little bit too. And it, after looking up his history, it is no surprise to me that he was a person who was not afraid to move forward. He was captured by the Japanese in 1942, and he was a POW during World War II. He escaped from his POW camp in Japan, was recaptured, and then sentenced to death. And it was only the end of the war in 1945 that saved him from his death sentence, and then he comes back to Oklahoma. He becomes the assistant district attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. Later, a county judge. He would then became a Supreme Court justice in 1958. And he’s the one who wrote what I would consider one of the seminal books on this whole Supreme Court bribery scandal. It’s called Justice for Sale: The Shocking Scandal of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and I would encourage anybody out there to pick up a copy of this. You’ll do a much deeper dive than we’ve been able to do today. But it is a fascinating read, and it does give you this microcosm view of Oklahoma history at that particular point in time.
Blackburn: You have the Berry family, in large part, are pioneers in Oklahoma, the legal profession, and I admire the Berrys a lot.
Thompson: Yeah, well, I do want to get to our next guest, and we’re going to be excited to hear from one of my favorite people, Jari Askins.
Blackburn: Yeah, and Jari and I go way back. She and my wife were elected to the legislature the same year, in 1994. Jari, of course, from Duncan at the time, but she and Debbie officed together in their first years in the legislature, and I’ve known Jari since then. I’ve always admired her. She served the state honorably. After the legislature, lieutenant governor, ran for higher office. But now is serving the state still to this day. When I think of public service, Jari Askins, you know, has that, in aces.
Thompson: Absolutely. All right, let’s meet Jari. I’d like to welcome into our podcast, Jari Askins. Jari Askins currently serves as the administrative director of the courts, where, under the supervision of the chief justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, she coordinates judicial operations and personnel throughout the state. The Administrative Office of the Courts also provides leadership and staff support for the Judicial Nominating Commission, the Oklahoma Children’s Court Improvement Project, the Board of Certified Courtroom Interpreters, and the Oklahoma Access to the Justice Commission. Jari served as a special judge for the District Court of Stephens County from 1982 to 1990. In 1991, the governor appointed her to the Pardon and Parole Board, which elected Jari as its first female chairman. She later served as the executive director of the Pardon and Parole Board and as deputy general counsel in the office of the governor. In 2014, Governor Mary Fallin called upon Jari once again to lead the Pardon and Parole Board by serving as the agency’s interim executive director. In addition to all of this, she was elected to the House of Representatives from District 50 in Duncan and served her full 12-year term limit. During her last term, she became the first woman to lead a caucus in the Oklahoma Legislature when she was elected Democratic House leader. She was elected lieutenant governor in 2006 and served until 2011. Jari, it is great to have you as our guest today at the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Jari Askins; Thanks, Trait. It’s a pleasure for me to join you.
Thompson: Well, Jari, that’s quite a resume. And I would say that you’ve certainly made your rounds throughout the halls of public service, starting out in Duncan and working your way through the Pardon and Parole Board and serving as lieutenant governor. You, in your current position, you have a front-row seat to the operations of the judicial system in the state of Oklahoma. Correct?
Askins: You know, it’s really gone full circle for me because, yes, my first entry into public service, not just community volunteer, but public service was as a judge in Stephens County. And so now to be the administrative director of the court for the last almost eight and a half years, it is like coming back home to what I started off doing, but being able to use everything, every experience that I’ve had in between.
Thompson: Can you talk a little bit about your daily life in your current position? What is it entail being the administrative director of the courts?
Askins: Well, that’s a great question because a lot of people don’t focus on the word administrative. So, really and truly, my office and the administrative office of the courts, our staff, conduct the business side of the judiciary. We don’t, anything that is non-adjudicatory. I don’t have anything to do with who sets a hearing in Carter County or a probate decision in Tillman County or criminal cases or cases on appeal. I don’t even know what are on those court’s dockets. However, if they need court reporters or secretary bailiffs or if they, if our appellate judges are looking for staff attorneys, our office helps with the onboarding of new employees, and we have a centralized payroll for the judiciary in Oklahoma. So for all 244 trial judges and the 26 appellate judges, my office does the payroll. We do the HR. And then you mentioned several boards we staff and help certify. We work with the Board of Examiners for certified courtroom interpreters, for shorthand court reporters. So anything that’s kind of court-related.
Thompson: And you make the trains run on time.
Askins: Well, that’s the goal. And, I have really wonderful people that work there. We’ve had some retirements over the last few years, and many of those people had worked 20, 30 years for the court system in Oklahoma. And so they do a great job, and they do a really super job during the months that the legislature is in session, when I’m at the Capitol looking at legislation that can have an impact on court processes, that can have an impact on our courts funding, as well as being available to answer questions or participate in discussions on issues like criminal justice reform, that may not have a specific court component, but because of my previous experience, and I carried a lot of criminal justice bills as a legislator, so I’m involved in a lot of those discussions.
Thompson: Well, today we’ve been talking about the 1965 Supreme Court scandal. And this was a was a major scandal that made national news throughout, all over the place about justices. We had Justice Earl Welch, Justice N. B. Johnson, and Justice N. S. Corn who were taking bribes to affect the outcome of certain cases that that came before them, and this was a, this was a big deal. And in 1965, well, really in 1964, we have, Corn is serving out his sentence in the penitentiary, and he makes a statement to federal officials at the time and says, hey, by the way, I was taking bribes, and Justice Welch was taking bribes, and Justice Johnson was taking bribes. And that was a major bombshell. And that works its way into the hands of William Berry, who was a Supreme Court justice at the time, and then ultimately works its way over to the legislature. And Governor Henry Bellmon was governor at the time. And I’d really like to just hear your thoughts about that scandal, and how, does the court today, is that still in the back of the court’s minds in terms of any operations or how things work? I know, and we’re going to get into this, that we get into the creation of the Judicial Nominating Commission with the idea to try to take partisan politics out of the judiciary, but how does, how, in your opinion, did this affect the court?
Askins: Well, I think what’s important to remember at that time is, I was not an adult. I was not even a teenager. So most of what I know, I have learned through history and through my work in state government. But I would tell you what I do remember, at least prior, you know, to my teenage years, I remember there being campaign signs for judicial positions. I remember Court of Civil Appeals yard signs and fence-post signs. And that was, that’s what was going on was election of judges even at the civil appeals level and at the Supreme Court level. So it wasn’t just the trial courts, and they were elected on a partisan ticket at that time. And so the moneys that were later learned to be offered to members of the Supreme Court were sufficient funds to help them be able to run their campaigns so that for people friendly to certain positions would get elected and be on the court when certain decisions were coming down. So first and foremost, I think that’s what people focused on. I think that’s what policymakers focused on as this scandal came to light was how can we change? What was the current system then to try to avoid those kinds of influences when the scales of justice are supposed to be balanced, and she’s supposed to be blind.
Thompson: Yeah. We’ve talked about before on this podcast about the founders of our state and how they really wanted to put the power of, the power into the hands of the people and not into just a few people, administrators who would run things. And so that’s why we don’t have a strong governor in this state or haven’t typically had that. And so the founders of our state thought that it would be best that our judicial, our judges, were put on a ballot and that they would have to be accountable to the people for the things that they did. I think it’s a noble, it’s a noble intention. But at the same time, what we ended up getting out of that is undue partisan influence. And so who were going to be the people that are going to be most likely to donate to a judge’s campaign? Well, it’s going to be someone who either has business before the court or attorneys who want to want to curry favor in maybe future generations, or future decisions that are made. And so it kind of sets it up where the court is supposed to be impartial, but it’s a little bit difficult to do it in that circumstance.
Askins: And I think when you’re correct, and I think when you reach, you know, it’s one thing, to elect like your state representative. They all say all politics is local. So you have a tendency to know who your local state representative, especially in rural areas. And so even under today’s process, we still have the election of our trial court judges, because you are much more likely to know who that individual is. But when you read, it’s kind of like with statewide campaigns, the higher up the ballot you go, the larger the geographic area that elects someone, the harder it is to know them. And so it is easier, and certainly was at that time, you know, campaigns weren’t as expensive as they are now. So many could buy some time on television, could buy a lot of radio, buy a lot of signs to put out that perhaps a challenger might not be able to have access to those resources.
Thompson: Yeah. It came out. Yeah. During the testimony, during the impeachment trial that one of the bribes was came under the guise of campaign contributions. We’re, you know, this is a campaign contribution to you that ultimately ended up being more of a bribe than anything else.
Askins: Yes, and, even though it, they were all about having an influence on certain decisions or knowing certain cases were in the in the pipeline and coming up and would need some votes or hopefully some persuasiveness to move a decision one way or the other. But the reason they were able to be successful is because of the election process, which allowed heavy, heavy advertising and pushing of individual candidates. And, I do think that once all of this came out, when the great minds that were thinking, how do we improve this, how do we make the, justice system truly an independent and fair judiciary? I think that’s why they looked at removing partisan elections from the process and, and began to look at, well, how do we vet these individuals? And the idea of the Judicial Nominating Commission was born.
Thompson: Yeah. So let’s get into that. After the impeachment of Justice Corn, Justice Welch had resigned, before the trial started in the Senate. Governor Henry Bellmon, he issued a statement, and one of the sections of the statement said, “As governor, I now call on all citizens and responsible organizations to join in cooperative action to bring about the future selection of judges on a non-partisan and non-political basis, in order that we might have the best informed, experienced, and dedicated persons on our courts of justice, and that these courts be completely free of political and partisan influence.” And so, you know, Bellmon sets it out. This is our goal here. We’ve got to move past the scandal. We’ve got to have confidence in the courts as we move forward. And The Oklahoma City Times wrote in an editorial, “Do we want reform? It must be obvious to all by now that we must do something about changing the method of selecting our judges. How can anyone be happy about the fact, now so vividly underlined, that a judge must depend for his reelection on campaign contributions from some of the very attorneys and firms who appear in the court?” And so we get into, Governor Bellmon appoints an 18-member committee. It’s chaired by Earl Sneed, who was the dean of the OU law school, and they were to prepare recommendations for judicial reform. Sneed was an advocate for the Missouri system, which justices are appointed by the governor and then are elected or rejected by the by the voters after a probationary period. The Oklahoma Institute for Justice proposed a modified Missouri plan, which ultimately ends up pretty much what happens, which was a nomination by a commission. A list of three qualified persons is put forward to fill the vacancy, and then it’s a provisional appointment until an election occurs.
Askins: That’s right, and that’s for the appellate judges. And the governor still has the ability to make an appointment if there’s a vacancy at district judge or associate district judge until the next general election, and then those trial court judges are elected, but on a non-partisan ballot.
Thompson: And how important do you think it is that it is on a non-partisan ballot?
Askins: I think it’s very important. And remember, again, I go back at my first effort in public service was as a judge. And so, my position as a special judge was appointed, but I still was subject to the same code of judicial conduct as the elected judges, which meant I was not to participate in any partisan political activities, not to be engaged at all. And the more you’re in a smaller town, you know, you it may limit some of the things you get to go do, but that’s what I signed on for, and that’s what I was used to. And so as I, it never occurred to me that judges would be political because the ones I worked with and that I had grown up around, if you would, through my legal career, were very adamant and steadfast and following the Code of Judicial Conduct and carried themselves at all times, that if there was any appearance of bias or favoritism, they stepped aside from a case so that they could remain independent and fair.
Thompson: In 1967, June 11, 1967, there’s two state questions that go on the ballot. One is State Question 448. The other is State Question 447. State Question 447 established the Judicial Nominating Commission that would submit names to the governor for appointment. Every six years, the justices would run on retention ballots. State Question 448 set up a two-level system with trial work being handled by the district court and appeals work being handled by the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals, and it also eliminated the Justice of the Peace courts as well. So this two-prong state question, and what’s interesting about this is there was language that said that both had to pass or neither would pass. So this was a two-for-one deal, so to speak. And this is what sets up the current system that we have today.
Askins: Yes, it is. And, you know, I can’t imagine what it was like trying to, after the ballot initiative, after things passed, after those two state questions passed, the efforts then with the legislature to pass really the guidelines to make the constitutional provisions work because that was the responsibility of the legislature at the time and trying to anticipate, establishing a system that would be vastly different than what the state had previously experienced.
Thompson: Since statehood.
Askins: Since statehood. Exactly. You know, over, well, 60 years, over 60 years. And that would also then stand the test of time, that would be sustainable. And I think that those who helped organize that, who helped draft the structure, are to be commended for their foresight and their efforts in trying to make sure that the people of Oklahoma who appear in any court can feel comfortable that they have an unbiased, independent, impartial jurist making that decision.
Thompson: There’s been some tweaks to the makeup of the Judicial Nominating Commission over the years. And I’d like to talk a little bit about the makeup of the commission today, and then I’d love your insight over sort of how it functions on a, on-the-ground basis, if you will. There’s 15 commissions. Nine of them are non-lawyers.
Askins: Correct.
Thompson: Which you would, you know, once again, you would expect that you would have more lawyers than not. But on this commission, what’s the reasoning behind that, do you think?
Askins: Well, I when the commission started out, there were six congressional districts in Oklahoma at that time. And so there are representatives on the nominating commission, one lawyer and one non-lawyer, from each of those six districts as they existed at the time the JNC was created. The six non-lawyers that are appointed, are appointed by the governor, one from each of those old six districts. The attorneys, the lawyers who are on the commission, are elected within that old congressional district. So they’re not handpicked by the Bar Association or anything. They run for those positions in a democratic election, and are voted on only by the lawyers who live in that old congressional-defined district. So, I live in congressional district four. That’s my residency. So I would have an opportunity to vote on a commissioner from that area. I have chosen not to do so while I’m in this job, because I don’t think that’s appropriate for me, but I don’t have an opportunity, I don’t vote on whoever’s up, whoever the lawyers are on the ballot out of Tulsa or out of the Panhandle. That’s not, I don’t have that opportunity.
Thompson: And these are people that run, they’re members of the bar, and only members of the bar can vote for them, correct?
Askins: Can only, yes. So, you know, family members that are not lawyers, not active members of the Bar Association, have no opportunity to vote. The other three, so six lawyers, six appointed by the governor, the speaker of the House of Representatives has an appointment, and the president pro tem of the Senate has an appointment. And those four, and they can be at-large, they can be from anywhere. And those 14 all together pick a non-lawyer at-large member from any part of the state, and that makes the 15th person.
Thompson: What I also think is interesting that of the six that the governor appoints, that no more than three can belong to the same political party, correct?
Askins: Correct. And you have to think at the time that that was set up, but Democrats held, other than Governor Bellmon, Democrats held most of the congressional, probably all the congressional seats, held most of the statewide offices and certainly had large majorities in the House and Senate, and the opposite of that is now true. And so, it wasn’t like it was a real close divide back at the creation of the JNC. But that is correct to, I think it, again, is an effort to try to avoid the political influence.
Thompson: I would love it if you could walk me through just how it works from a, you know, boots-on-the-ground level. So, say we have a Supreme Court justice vacancy. What happens then, from the JNC standpoint? How does it work?
Askins: Well, you know, it’s kind of interesting for you to ask me because I actually applied for the, through the JNC twice, once for district judge vacancy and then once for, well, I guess three times, twice for appellate vacancies. Then I worked in a governor’s office, where we did the interviews of the candidates who were submitted to the governor. And now I work for the entity that staffs the JNC.
Thompson: See, this is why I knew you would be perfect to be here. So you’ve covered it from all the angles.
Askins: I’ve been there all-around. And so if there’s a vacancy at any judicial position, but let’s take an appellate position. We’ve had, the governor has filled several Court of Civil Appeals positions over the last couple, three years. If it’s a retirement, my position, the statute says if a judge retires or justice, I have, once I received notice of the retirement, the statute says I have five days to notify the governor of the of that vacancy, pending retirement. And the governor then, and his staff, notify the chair of the Judicial Nominating Commission, and then the JNC posts the notice through the Oklahoma Bar Journal, and we posted on the JNC website, which links to the application, gives the deadline for when the applications are due. For the last several, last couple, three years, Jim Webb, when he was, he’s no longer a member of the JNC. He is term-limited off. But when he was chair, he really focused on sending out notice whether it, they may never have been published anywhere, but he would send out notices to media that there was a vacancy or that these people had applied, and encourage responses. But it has to be published so many times in the Oklahoma Bar Journal. So, we post the notice with the deadline of when applications are due. And then, assuming that there are three or more applications, if there’s not at least three qualified individuals who apply, then, meeting the constitutional qualifications, we have to reopen the position. That’s not a problem on appellate positions. But the deadline passes for the applications to be due.
The JNC staff, depending on how many there are, if there’s as many as 15 names, the agency may meet and probably will meet and reduce that number down to seven or eight or whatever they think is the appropriate number. And those names are then submitted to the OSBI for background check, and the vetting process starts to make sure there is nothing in the background that would make the individual suspect, should they have an opportunity to be recommended to the governor.
Thompson: Since the JNC was created, are you aware of any scandals that are anywhere like what we experienced in 1965?
Askins: Certainly not like ’65 when you’re talking about bags of money. To my knowledge, and as has been reported to me, there’s been one appellate judge who resigned after personal issues came up that were interfering with his responsibilities on the Court of Criminal Appeals, but that’s the only one I’m aware of involving a judge who was appointed through the JNC process.
Thompson: So I guess, you know, looking back on it now, since the 1960s, you know, it’s pretty safe to say that this is a process that has served the purpose that Governor Bellmon laid out to to make it non-partisan, non-political.
Askins: I think it is. And it’s amazing to me that those guidelines that were put into place at that time have really stood firm. And I think it becomes a little bit more difficult for individuals who are kind of growing up in a social media world, because they’re, I mean, certainly you can have opinions in your house and, you know, in private, but so much of our lives are available to be checked out on social media. And so I think judges, they struggle sometimes to figure out how much can they be public about their family or, you know, what they may choose to do in their in their spare time, and make sure that it doesn’t get misinterpreted as being an effort to try to influence or give the appearance that they have been compromised.
Thompson: You know, another interesting thing about this whole saga is, you know, the history of impeachments in our state, early on in our state’s history, it was almost like we liked to impeach people for sport, and for reasons that were real and for reasons that were imagined, you know, it was, we impeached people a lot. This impeachment trial that happened in the, of course, the House files the articles of impeachment. They have to vote on those. And then the process there is they go to the Senate, and there’s an actual trial in the Senate that happens. And this was the last instance that I’m aware of in Oklahoma history that we had a Senate impeachment trial.
Askins: And I think for people to understand, with 48 senators, the judge for the Senate impeachment trial is the sitting chief justice, and so that’s the last one I’m aware of. I believe that the House has issued articles of impeachment one time since then, perhaps, like around 2005, four or five, somewhere in there against an insurance commissioner who later resigned before, without going to trial.
Thompson: And that was the same case in ’65, the House filed articles of impeachment against Justice Welch, and he decided to resign. Justice Johnson decided to take his chances with the impeachment trial. And in this particular case, since you brought it up, the chief justice of the Supreme Court recused himself because it was dealing with the Supreme Court scandal. And so, Roy Grantham, who was state senator from Ponca City, was the presiding judge of the Senate trial.
Askins: And I think it’s important because, again, it shows that not every member of the Supreme Court at that time was involved in the escapades, if you will, of influence buying. And yet this chief justice was aware that the appearance of bias could exist either way. Either that he’d be so mad about what happened that he might not rule as fairly, and so he stepped aside. And I think it is that understanding of the expectation of judicial conduct that the people of Oklahoma continue to seek.
Thompson: You know, what I’m amazed about too, is we’re very hyper-partisan, and we’ve always been hyper-partisan. I don’t like to fall into the trap of saying things are worse today than they maybe have been in previous decades. You know, partisanship has been a part of the American fabric almost since, you know, after George Washington left office. But one thing that stands out about this particular impeachment trial is these justices that were on trial, they were Democrats, and the legislature was overwhelmingly Democrat. The governor was Republican, but he didn’t really have a role other than sort of carrying the public stake of, we have to do something about this. And so I think it’s incredibly interesting that Democrats voted to impeach a Democrat, and the partisan nature of this didn’t really get into it too much; is that they wanted to see that justice was done.
Askins: It wasn’t about politics, it was about right and wrong. And I think that that is so important, regardless of which philosophy, if you would, happens to control the major decision-making positions. The man and women that I tend to work with out at the State Capitol I think feel that same way. That it’s, and we sometimes see that in the way they discipline over the last 10 years, members of their own caucuses, when different things have happened both inside the Capitol and outside.
Thompson: Well, I just want to say from a personal standpoint that I admire you so much. You have a legacy of public service. You’ve dedicated your life to public service. And from what, I’ve known you for several years now. We’ve worked together on a few different projects, and I’ve just always admired how much your thinking goes to what’s the right way of doing things, and what’s the best for the people of Oklahoma. And I just thank you for your legacy of public service because it’s an inspiration to me personally.
Askins: Well, thank you. And I have, even when I was in the legislature and had an opportunity to speak to groups of judges, maybe at their judicial conference, I said this then, that was long before any statewide races for lieutenant governor or otherwise. And that I fully believe that because I got my start in public service as a judge, as a decision maker, as a person who was charged with listening to everything that was given as evidence in my courtroom before I’d made a decision, that those traits guided me as a legislator and as lieutenant governor. And I think, I hope, guide me now in my work at the Capitol and that I come from a background of trying to figure out what’s the best answer for the problem that’s in front of us under the rules of law. And I think if we had, if I can do anything to help more younger public servants learn how to do that, then I think all the decisions they make will be better.
Thompson: Well, we thank you for your service and thank you for making time to come on the podcast today.
Askins: I appreciate being invited. Thank you.
Thompson: Well, Bob, that was a great talk with Jari. And, you actually weren’t able to be there for that one. You had a conflict. You were working on another project at the time, and I had to snag Jari when we had our calendar open. And so, for the folks out there that are wondering, why didn’t we hear Bob talking during that interview? Well, Bob was off doing some other things. That is part of his museum consulting business.
Blackburn: Well, I’m still trying to figure out retirement. And, so far, I haven’t found out exactly what retirement means. It just means changing and as a consultant. But I’m having a blast writing books and just finished a book on Tom Love, a tribute to him that is inspiring to me, and some museum projects. So yeah, I’m having a good time. Sorry I missed that.
Thompson: Well, Jari, the conversation was phenomenal with her, and I just have nothing but good things to say about her and everything that she has done for the state of Oklahoma. And so this has been such a great conversation, Bob, and I’m looking forward to our next one. So we’ll see everyone down the line.
Thompson: (upbeat music playing) You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org, and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
(upbeat music playing)
