West Virginia is evaluating the effectiveness of having partisan judicial elections when it comes to having fair and independent courts in the state.  This article lays out the findings of a recent study that shows partisan elections could mean bad news for out-of-state corporations, and towards the end the public financing option is floated as a way to address growing concern over the influence of money on the election of judges.Elections mean judges have to prove their worth to the state voters, and the study suggests that might take the form of issuing larger payouts to state residents from out-of-state corporations when they break the law.  Add in to the mix the growing amount of private money being spent on these elections, either in the form of campaign contributions from lawyers and other interested parties to the judicial candidates, or in the form of independent expenditures funded by corporations looking for favorable rulings and its no wonder the state is looking at alternatives.North Carolina has offered a full public financing option for judicial candidates for several years now and it has proved popular among candidates looking to steer clear of any special interest influence on their campaigns:Judge Wanda Bryant of the North Carolina Court of Appeals recounted her state's adoption of a public financing system for appellate judges. She participated in the system and said it freed her from having to raise campaign funds so she could spend more time campaigning. "It was a much better system than we had before," she said. Another, older study mentioned in the article suggested that law firms who had made campaign contributions to judges did better in court than those firms that did not give -- all signs point to a need to overhaul the way judges are put on the bench.