Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek; Supreme Court Justices Apply New Ethics Code Differently
"Supreme Court justices are divided along political lines over whether or not to explain their recusals, and legal experts are very concerned."
Ethically-tangled aspects of 21st century societies and cultures. In the vein of Charles Darwin’s 1859 “entangled bank” metaphor—a complex and evolving digital ecosystem of difference and dependence, where humans, technologies, ethics, law, policy, data, and information converge and diverge. Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek; Supreme Court Justices Apply New Ethics Code Differently
"Supreme Court justices are divided along political lines over whether or not to explain their recusals, and legal experts are very concerned."
Erin Snodgrass , Insider ; Clarence Thomas' recusal on 'frivolous' January 6 appeal is a 'low-stakes' opportunity for him to fight ethics allegations, Supreme Court expert says
"His apparent about-face on Monday suggests the increased scrutiny over his ethical conduct may be having a tangible effect on his judicial career, Scott Lemieux, a professor of political science at the University of Washington and an expert in constitutional law, told Insider.
"The fact that he didn't recuse himself in previous cases involving the 2020 election makes it hard to imagine these recent stories aren't playing a role here," he told Insider...
Regardless of his reasons, Thomas ultimately did the right thing in recusing himself from the Eastman appeal, Lemieux said.
"The justices have to be convinced if they do unethical things, it will hurt the legitimacy of the Supreme Court," he said."
Gabe Roth | Bloomberg; The One Ethics Rule the Supreme Court Needs Before Its Next Term
[Kip Currier: Interesting idea of "cooling off period" for U.S. Supreme Court Justices, as Gabe Roth describes: "If you’re a justice who, in the last 10 years, has received income, including book advances and royalties, from an individual, corporation, security or government office, and that entity finds itself before the court, recusal should be required."
It is absolutely appalling that these nine highest judicial arbiters in America are not out in front on this issue of U.S. Supreme Court ethics reform.
Shame on all nine of you for not speaking out on your ethical lapses and for not taking substantive action to make amends to the American people for whom you serve, to inspire greater public confidence in the vital roles to which you have been entrusted. Each one of you has a responsibility to avoid appearances of impropriety and to set the highest standards of judicial conduct and ethics.]
"What might be worse: Some court-watchers are insisting Thomas and Alito did nothing wrong in accepting their largesse. That’s a preposterous position considering the legal standard for bias, as summarized three decades ago by Justice John Paul Stevens: “The relevant inquiry […] is not whether or not the judge was actually biased but whether he or she appeared biased.” Put it another way, as the Code of Conduct for US Judges does: “An appearance of impropriety occurs when reasonable minds, with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances […], would conclude that the judge’s honesty, integrity, impartiality, temperament or fitness to serve as a judge is impaired.”...
Again, you don’t need to verify that X (a gift or free trip) led to Y (a specific outcome in a case). If the X is fishy, the specifics of the Y don’t matter much. And these days, SCOTUS smells like weeks-old salmon...
Ethics rules exist not so that public officials can come as close as possible to crossing the line and then generate a debate on the line’s contours. They’re not policies from which officials can cherry-pick certain phrases that they believe to be loopholes. They’re there to help navigate difficult questions with an eye toward maintaining public confidence. It’s clear the Supreme Court has strayed from that vision and needs help getting back on track.
It’s worth noting that although Thomas’s and Alito’s lapses are the most egregious, every justice currently on the court could be accused of some ethical failure...
Here’s my solution, and it’s not the uber-nonspecific “ethics code.” Instead, Congress should institute a hard-and-fast cooling off period for the justices."
Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica; Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court
"In the years that followed, Singer’s hedge fund came before the court at least 10 times in cases where his role was often covered by the legal press and mainstream media. In 2014, the court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the nation of Argentina. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with the 7-1 majority in Singer’s favor. The hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion.
Alito did not report the 2008 fishing trip on his annual financial disclosures. By failing to disclose the private jet flight Singer provided, Alito appears to have violated a federal law that requires justices to disclose most gifts, according to ethics law experts.
Experts said they could not identify an instance of a justice ruling on a case after receiving an expensive gift paid for by one of the parties."
Devin Dwyer andGabriella Abdul-Hakim, ABC News; Ginni and Clarence Thomas draw questions about Supreme Court ethics
"There are no explicit ethics guidelines that govern the activities of a justice's spouse, experts say, but there are rules about justices avoiding conflicts of interest. Federal law requires federal judges to recuse from cases whenever their "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
Roth notes, however, that there is no independent enforcement mechanism in place; it's entirely up to the individual justice...
Members of Congress and outside experts say new enforceable ethics rules for the court are needed now more than ever. Even Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged in his 2021 year-end report that "public trust is essential, not incidental" to the court's function.
But Roberts opposes outside efforts to impose a new ethics code."