Should there be some form of ethics oversight for the Supreme Court?
Should there be some form of ethics oversight for the Supreme Court? Whether that oversight falls to Congress of the Executive is irrelevant at this point: the question is should there be ethical oversight?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/17/justice-scalias-death-and-questions-about-who-pays-for-supreme-court-justices-to-visit-remote-resorts/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/17/justice-scalias-death-and-questions-about-who-pays-for-supreme-court-justices-to-visit-remote-resorts/
Comments
There are checks and balances in our government, but aside from being nominated by the executive and vetted by the Senate, there are no checks on judicial power. Should there be?
Take Scalia, for example. He was friends and sporting buddies with people who's cases he was judging. Can he truly be impartial? Maybe, but probably not.
Nor in Article 2: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii
Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.
Article II sec 4: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Or, instead of arguing moronic points you could just visit the SCOTUS FAQs page: http://www.supremecourt.gov/faq.aspx
http://bfy.tw/4JvI
And there's nothing in that SCotUS FAQs about judges censuring themselves or other manners in which they are ethically held accountable.
But hey, lets look at a real answer, shall we?
https://law.stanford.edu/publications/ethical-oversight-for-the-justices/
Unlike any other judge, each individual who sits on the Supreme Court has unreviewable authority to determine whether he or she should withdraw from hearing a case for ethical reasons. The governing federal statute requires recusal whenever a justice’s impartiality “might reasonably be questioned.” But it provides no oversight mechanism, short of impeachment, if a justice unreasonably declines to withdraw.
So, should there some form of ethical oversight for SCotUS justices?
Impeachment removes them... do you not read?
"And there's nothing in that SCotUS FAQs about judges censuring themselves or other manners in which they are ethically held accountable."
No, because you were being dense as to impeachment for that reply... as for censure:
Censure is a fancy word for signing a letter of admonition with your name. Any person or any group can make a formal complaint about anyone else.
Further Article III specifically makes it so SCOTUS justices aren't immune from prosecution for any crime, hence they can even more formally be censured by a lower court passing a judgement against them.
http://bfy.tw/4JvU
But that just proves my point: there is no ethical oversight for SCotUS justices. Not in the Constitution and not via legislation or decree since it was ratified.
The Constitution does outline how impeachments are handled, but doesn't state what's an impeachable offense regarding SCotUS justices. Is it reserved for treason? Or can a SCotUS justice be impeached for missing too many days of work?
As I've already shown (twice), there are no formal ethical oversights for justices, which means they can act with impunity, as Scalia did habitually.
Should a justice be allowed to give a speech on Biblical supremacy and then be allowed to sit in judgement over religious liberty cases?
Should a justice be able to accept large gifts from millionaire and billionaires and then sit in judgement over those same people or their companies?
Should a justice who publicly states she or he believes certain types of people are an abomination be allowed to hold court over those types of people? Such as an overtly racist justice? Or maybe, like Scalia, who thought gay people were an affront to his religion and yet he sat in judgement over same sex rights cases?
The question was, and always has been, should there be a formal ethical oversight for SCotUS justices?
Justice Kagan has indeed recused herself, on many occasions, only proving she's an ethical person. However, Scalia never recused himself, even when he had a personal interest in the case or had spoken about the issues publicly. A judge is to remain impartial if their judgements are to be considered valid. You really don't think there needs to be ethical oversight for lifetime appointments?
correct: the supreme court does not need additional ethical oversight. you are trying to make a case out of smoke and mirrors, Scalia did indeed recuse himself when he felt it necessary., proving (in your words) that he is an ethical justice.
"Scalia recused himself from Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004),"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia
It showed favoritism.
Monday morning quarterbacking is great for some things, but really the SCOTUS has a high enough bar of entry and a hard enough job that they take seriously enough that it doesn't need another layer of people telling them how they get it wrong. Let the 4th estate worry about it, and understand that when it comes to serious infractions there's still legal recourse.
"The Court ruled 7–2 that the lower appeals court had acted "prematurely" and sent the case back to the court.[3]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheney_v._United_States_District_Court_for_the_District_of_Columbia
And it's not "Monday morning" quarterbacking - it's asking a valid question.
And no, kirk sticken, we didn't establish that Scalia was an ethical justice, we established that he recused himself - once. And didn't recuse himself multiple times. We don't know that Scala's biases didn't influence his voting, we do know, however, that he and only he, believes it didn't.
Do I have evidence of any specific ethical violations? No. But that's the point of my initial question: if there is no ethical oversight, then we can't know if there's a question of ethical impropriety. It's all guesswork. Very few people admit to wrongdoing, even judges. And since you brought it up, yes judges have biases, which is one of the reasons why congresses across the country have legislated the legal outcomes of most cases, taking the opinion of the judges out of the running. And, unlike SCotUS justices, each and every judge from circuit court down to town magistrates have ethical codes by which they can be held accountable. Supreme Court justices have none. There is no oversight. No boards, no ethics panels, no nothing. Hence the question I've asked: should there be?
But no, questioning the operation if government isn't Monday morning quarterbacking, it's analysis.