The US Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics for the first time
apnews.com
apnews.com
>For the most part these rules and principles are not new: The Court has long had the equivalent of common law ethics rules, that is, a body of rules derived from a variety of sources, including statutory provisions, the code that applies to other members of the federal judiciary, ethics advisory opinions issued by the Judicial Conference Committee on Codes of Conduct, and historic practice. The absence of a Code, however, has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.
----
From a quick scan, I think the inclusion of spouses in some of the suggestions for recusal are probably among the most notable. Also:
>A Justice may attend a “fundraising event” of law- related or other nonprofit organizations, but a Justice should not knowingly be a speaker, a guest of honor, or featured on the program of such event. In general, an event is a “fundraising event” if proceeds from the event exceed its costs or if donations are solicited in connection with the event.
Is maybe interesting, especially re: Federalist Society and Leonard Leo.
At any rate, it says "should" and "may" rather than "must" so YMMV.
Oh wait…
>Many of those stories focused on Justice Clarence Thomas and his failure to disclose travel and other financial ties with wealthy conservative donors including Harlan Crow and the Koch brothers. But Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor also have been under scrutiny.
The fact that people are only calling out one person seems very telling to me. This problem is far deeper than one guy or one side.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/scotus-justices-rac...
Of course, that’s assuming you’re not one of the people who believes that he truly thought a trip on a private plane does not need to be disclosed because the seat would have otherwise been taken by someone else so it wasn’t actually a benefit.
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/21/alito-propublica-alaska-fis...
But I think all the justices can see what Thomas was doing was pretty awful and I doubt any of the other justices, even those whose views I find abhorrent, would have gone that far.
And we’re only talking about justices’ actions themselves. This ethics code very clearly brings in consideration of the judge’s spouse’s activities as well, something which, once again is a major problem with Thomas, and none of the other judges as far as I can tell.
I'm not sure that is the case. Ginsburg got a trip from a person and then the court declined to take up a case against said person.[1] The whole article is quite good so I would recommend reading the whole thing.
>This ethics code very clearly brings in consideration of the judge’s spouse’s activities as well, something which, once again is a major problem with Thomas, and none of the other judges as far as I can tell.
If his wife had wanted to give a speech and Thomas told her no, how many articles would there have been about the mean, misogynist, conservative man controlling his wife? It was a lose lose for Thomas on this so long as his wife wanted to do it.
I think this is on his wife, not him. Justice Breyer defended Thomas on this [2] as well.
There are examples of other justices' spouses doing similar things. Roberts' wife for example [3]. I'm sure there are more cases as well.
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/scotus-justices-rac...
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/stephen-breyer-defends-ginni-thomas...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/us/john-roberts-jane-sull...
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/scotus-justices-rac...
Clarence Thomas did not.
Also, as far as I can tell it looks like Thomas may have disclosed some of his trips. I'm not clear on that though. It is not clear how many trips the other justices took and didn't disclose.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/scotus-justices-rac...
They may as well fine them $50 every time they accept a bribe.
Term limits would go much, much further and you'll notice the absence.
> The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
Which is actually more nuanced than just "you can ignore the supreme court whenever." Instead, it's articulating the idea that the SC has to be balanced with congress and elected officials. The idea that the SC is the sole arbiter of constitutional meaning grates against the democratically elected power of congress and the executive. An SC that constantly rejects congress risks overstepping and delegitimizing it's very power and role. For instance, congress might simply ignore a ruling, or strip its jurisdiction over certain matters, or it might change the size of the court. This of course could equally backfire on congress and the president. It's, as always, a balancing act of checks and balances rather than just the SC always getting what they want. Constitutional supremacy then is more like the argument that sometimes the judiciary has to be saved from itself.
The debate has a fascinating history in American politics.
I also fail to see how a "code of conduct" might change the way individual justices interpret the current constitution.
Worse yet, who is writing the code of ethics? Is it going to be a constitution v2? Constitution-lite?
I think this simply tries to address the fact that some of the justices have been ridiculously corrupt.
I mean, think about it, irrespective of your political leanings, you’re a judge whose basically forgone the much greater sums of money they could have made going into private service, in return for the comfort of a lifetime appointment, respect from the vast majority of people, and an effort to serve the country.
And there’s this 1 colleague of yours whose wife is raking in money from people whose cases you’re hearing, and is going on paid vacations with billionaires, and his mom is getting her house essentially gifted by another billionaire, etc.
You’d be pissed st this guy even if he was on “your side”. Just on a personal level it must be infuriating for the other 8 justices.
this assumes that the practice is not common, the fact remains that most of these "violations" have been known for years and years, but it politically advantageous to go after this justice at this time.
It is all political, not some altruistic sense of ethics, Biden has been after Thomas since his confirmation
It's pretty clear the founders wanted some magic box to tell everyone how the laws applied in a given situation, and designed the rest of the system around that. They attempted to create that with the Judicial branch. It's clear from the lack of term limits that they thought the Justices would be apolitical. However, there is no mechanism forcing the justices to interpret the laws in the simplest, most literal way. Instead we have increasingly stretched interpretations used to affect political change sans representative legislature.
My biggest fear is that the American public is going to look at this and say to themselves "oh look, they fixed the problem!"
So, probably not in our lifetimes
The whole institution is absurd and undemocratic and, as Clarence Thomas has proved [0], ripe with opportunities for corruption. A non-binding code of ethics doesn't change that.
Your guess is as good as mine what the current Supreme Court will decide the constitution says or doesn't say. And on some issues they take decades of latency to come to these decisions.
I do think it is insane that we allow this in the modern world. Not to mention all the self-righteous posturing of lawyers absolutely convinced this system epitomizes "justice".
I always had respect for the legal profession, but the way the Supreme Court is acting and the fact that nothing is being done about it has made me lose all respect for anyone in the legal profession.
Sure, most lawyers and judges might disagree with the actions of the Supreme Court, but lawyers are hesitant to say anything because they might end up as counsel in a Supreme Court case and don't want the court's ire.
The state of affairs really highlights how much of a dress-up, make-believe game the Legal profession has become.
Despite that being passed in 186X, the court didn't have a clue if it applied to the involuntary draft, peonage contracts, or chain gangs until decades later.
The courts are so slow in this country.
Guy is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the addiction of millions. He wasn't elected and he wont be punished.
> Curtis Wright, once a director at the US Food and Drug Administration who oversaw evaluation for pain medication, got a position with a first-year compensation package of $400,000 at Purdue Pharma a year after he led the approval of OxyContin
> Wright had confessed in a sworn deposition that he "might" have written the portion of the FDA package insert that said OxyContin was "believed to reduce the abuse liability of the drug."
> OxyContin was the "most prescribed brand name narcotic medication" for treating moderate to severe pain by 2001, according to a report by the US Government Accountability Office. Deaths from prescription opioid overdose quadrupled between 1999 to 2019, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 247,000 deaths from prescription opioid overdose over the last two decades.
>>7 FDA commissioners since 2017
hmmm... were they fired or did they take very high paying Big Pharma Jobs further enriching themselves from the corrupt deep state?
Or the actual Dept Heads, the ones that actually do the regulation and enforcement, the ones that have been there for decades and work for every administration
yes, by design and it should remain so..
This idea that democracy is the end all be all is false and dangerous, very dangerous. Mob rule is never the solution to anything (as we are seeing with the massive mobs in support of terrorist organization Hamas)
There are all kinds of checks built into the American REPUBLIC that are undemocratic purposefully to prevent the whims of the mob for ruling.
Personally I would like to remove many of the "democratic" processes we have put in place since the founding, namely the election of senators by popular vote, The senate should be returned to be appointed by State Legislators.
If you want to reform the Court system end Stare decisis and make the court rule on the constitutionally of each case on their merits based on the actual words of the Constitution as was their original charge and their constitutional mandate
The lifetime appointments are designed to put them outside of the scope of politicians and the need to run for re-election. I guess you could serve a single 15 year term with no option to rejoin the court.
> zero accountability
Supreme Court justices can be impeached and removed from office.
They can be impeached?
It's accountability, but in theory only.
That's true for much more than the Supreme Court though.
To answer your question: yes.
And what's the problem? That's exactly the point of this system — a part of government that is still _appointed by elected representatives_, but is not populist.
The fact that there are problems with an alternative set up (oh no, unstable populism!) doesn’t mean the current paradigm is itself flawless.
The parts of government that exist to slow things are always “very important to stability/safety/growth of the nation” but a lot of us just see them as the artifacts the rich and powerful put in place to ensure they and their friends and family stay rich and powerful for as long as possible.
Move fast and break things, especially governments.
You're absolutely technically correct. In the same vain, this doesn't mean that there's any better alternative.
> the artifacts the rich and powerful put in place to ensure they and their friends and family stay rich and powerful for as long as possible
You could say the same about many other things that benefit society as a whole. Turns out, things that make society rich and stable often help those in power stay in power.
> Move fast and break things, especially governments.
Unfortunately, I've been on the internet too long to be 100% sure it's sarcasm. So, just in case — please don't break governments. And may be don't actually move fast with them. Thank you.
> Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws and statutes they find to violate the Constitution of the United States.
It's a balance between politicians playing the circlejerk game to help each other with their misdeeds, and average joes voting for imbeciles.
I am going to take slight issue with this, The reason the Senate was appointed as not because "normal citizens usually don't have the political involvement necessary to make educated decisions" it was because we are a Union of States. ie the United States. The states are suppose to have some level of sovereignty from the Federal Government, Previous to the Civil War most citizens were loyal to their State first, then the country.
Post Civil War the federal government started to rewrite the relationship, however the Senate was to be the States representative in the Federal Government, thus why there are 2 for every State. The House Represented the people, thus why it is apportioned by population.
A Senator was not meant to be the citizens voice in the Federal government, but was meant be the Voice of the State Government from which they were appointed.
I'm from The Netherlands, so I'm lacking certain insights into the US