Judicial impartiality is the subject of this Yale lecture from Stephen Bright's course Capital Punishment: Race, Poverty, and Disadvantage. Bright examines what happens when judges, who are supposed to decide cases on law rather than prejudice or popularity, are shaped by racial bias or political pressure. He focuses on the American practice of electing judges and shows televised judicial campaign ads that use rulings in criminal cases as attack material. The lecture's centerpiece is an interview with Justice Penny White, who sat on the Tennessee Supreme Court until 1996, when she was voted out in a retention election after opponents campaigned against her over the court's reversal of a death sentence. White discusses judicial independence and the influence interest groups exert on courts through these campaigns. The lecture treats judicial elections as a structural problem for the rule of law rather than an abstract debate.