Candidates for State Supreme Court seats raised $29.4 million in the recent election with “much of the money coming from wealthy interests hoping to buy favorable court rulings,” according to an editorial this week in The New York Times.   The Times pressed the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a West Virginia case involving the coal company Massey Energy. The firm spent $3 million to elect a state Supreme Court Justice who would vote Massey’s way in a suit against the company, the paper contends.  In Michigan, Chief Justice Clifford Taylor and his opponent Judge Diane Marie Hathaway raised a combined $2.5 million in their race for a seat on the highest court. That was topped by the $3.5 million that influential interest groups spent on issue ads in the race, according to “Campaign Finance 2008: a first look back” from the research group Michigan Campaign Finance Network.  The Times notes that “(j)udicial neutrality and the appearance of neutrality are basic to due process.”  As long as big money dominates judicial races, many will question the neutrality of the judges.