Ads attacking state supreme court justices were on the air in the closing weeks before the Nov. 2 election in Alaska, Illinois, Iowa and Michigan. FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, reported Oct. 28 that several of the ads made false or misleading claims about justices’ records.

In Alaska, Alaskans for Judicial Reform aired a TV ad titled “Shred the Will” against Alaska Supreme Court Justice Dana Fabe, the first woman appointed to that court. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, which tracks judicial campaign ads, listed an Oct. 30 air date and described the spot as saying Fabe opposed parents’ rights. Alaska Family Action, which received $50,000 from CitizenLink, the public policy arm of Focus on the Family, also campaigned against Fabe, though the Alaska Judicial Council had voted 5-0 to recommend her retention.

In Illinois, JUSTPAC, a committee of the Illinois Civil Justice League, spent about $600,000 on radio ads in which actors posing as criminals thanked Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride for ruling in their favor. The league had opposed a ruling in which Kilbride joined other justices in striking down a state cap on medical malpractice awards. The Illinois State Bar Association said JUSTPAC had “distorted the record and rulings of Justice Kilbride.”

A JUSTPAC ad cited a study that the league had commissioned. FactCheck.org found at least 80 split decisions missing from the study, cases in which Kilbride voted with the majority more than 90% of the time. Kilbride, who needed 60% of the vote to keep his seat, told NPR, “They’re horrific. I think they’re vile.”

In Iowa, three justices faced retention votes after the Iowa Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Varnum v. Brien struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The National Organization for Marriage spent $235,000 on Iowa television ads backing the effort to remove them. One ad, paid for with Iowa for Freedom, accused “activist judges” of “ignoring the will of voters.” FactCheck.org noted that the ruling was unanimous, written by Justice Mark Cady, an appointee of former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad.

In Michigan, where 24 ads aired between June 14 and Oct. 29 in two contested supreme court races, a Michigan Democratic Party ad said Michigan Supreme Court Justice Robert Young had ruled that citizens “cannot hold [corporations] accountable when they pollute our lakes or rivers.” FactCheck.org called the claim false, reporting that Young’s 2007 opinion narrowed who could sue under the state’s environmental law.

Peter Hardin reported this story for Gavel Grab on Nov. 1, 2010, when the site was a project of Justice at Stake. This account of the same events was written from the public record.

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