For Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier, what’s past is prologue this election season. Ten years after waging what was then the most costly state Supreme Court election in U.S. history, the southern Illinois Republican is fighting another expensive, nasty election battle in his retention campaign. This time, his opponent isn’t a candidate. It’s a group of trial lawyers upset about his role in a pair of billion-dollar cases that have wound through the courts for years. The group …