Sunday, February 20, 2011

Did Justice Thomas Cross the Line

I can go for quite a while about whether Justice Clarence Thomas's recent actions have crossed the line. To be brief though, I think his extra-judicial activities (and those of his wife) have raised at the very least, the appearance of impropriety. I also think that failing to disclose his wife's income on a simple federal disclosures form is unacceptable. Unfortunately, there is no oversight of Supreme Court Justices outside impeachment, and I don't think impeachment is really appropriate here. At least not based on what we currently know. Representative Chris Murphy is introducing legislation to increase oversight of the Supreme Court:

Murphy's bill will:

  • apply the Judicial Conference's Code of Conduct, which applies to all other federal judges, to Supreme Court justices. This would allow the public to access more timely and detailed information when an outside group wants to have a justice participate in a conference, such as the funders of the conference;
  • require the justices to simply publicly disclose their reasoning behind a recusal when they withdraw from a case;
  • require the Court to develop a process for parties to a case before the Court to request a decision from the Court, or a panel of the Court, regarding the potential conflict of interest of a particular Justice.
I know the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, but shouldn't the ethical rules that apply to all other federal judges also apply to the Supreme Court? The judicial branch was designed to be insulated so that political forces wouldn't sway their decisions. Isn't it troubling that Supreme Court justices are entering into political disputes and then failing to disclose payments they've received for doing so?

1 comment:

Teri said...

I think one has to take into consideration who put the judges on the Supreme Court in the first place. It seems that SCOTUS candidates are chosen and/or voted in by the president/senate who feel the candidates best serve their own political interests. This goes for either liberal or conservative. As the judges are chosen by politicians who are voted in by the people, it seems to me there should be a similar form of oversight of the judges' potential conflicts of interest. Unless, of course, politicians never have conflicts of interest.