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Poll: SCOTUS the only branch with no ethics rules/laws. Do they now need them?

Does SCOTUS need ethics laws/rules created for them?

  • Yes. SCOTUS has demonstrated they need ethics forced on them

    Votes: 26 96.3%

  • No. SCOTUS can be trusted to do the right thing

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • Total voters
    27
HomerJS

HomerJS

Lifer
" Federal law requires that federal judges recuse themselves from cases whenever their "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

We've already seen the text messages from Ginni Thomas to Mark Meadows, urging him to thwart the results of the election. We also know Clarence Thomas was the only "no" vote on releasing Trump's records to the Jan 6 committee. This was a judicial no brainer by almost every legal scholar.

One could make the argument Clarence didn't know what his wife was up to but It would have been impossible to believe those two didn't have any discussions on the night of Jan 6. Democrats are calling for Thomas, who has already broken federal law (above) to recuse from any future Jan 6 cases. Because there is no enforcement mechanism Thomas can't be forced.

Question: Does SCOTUS need to have ethics laws/rules foisted on them?
 
It all has become a big joke.
Trump has done a thorough job of corrupting and infecting nearly all of our institutions of democracy. The high court is yet just another victim. At this point we can either try and clean up the mess, or let Trump back in to finish the job. It doesn't look good.
 
It was an 8-1 vote. Who gives a rats ass he didn’t recuse himself. And when he does it again, more proof to start impeachment procedures.
 
eelw said:
It was an 8-1 vote. Who gives a rats ass he didn’t recuse himself. And when he does it again, more proof to start impeachment procedures.
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That 1 vote was a vote NOT to release White House records.

When those records were released we learned about that 7.5 hour gap in the official White House call logs from Jan 6.

That's why
 
Constitution Article III, Section 1: "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour".
Constitution Article II, Section 4: "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"

It seems to me that, yes, the judges should have a definition for "good behaviour". It is in the constitution.

There has been some agreement that this "good behaviour" clause protects the judges from time limits and from political disagreements. A judge can't be removed from office after a set number of years or just because a politician doesn't like a judges rulings. And it does seem that there is already a method to remove a bad judge that is convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. So the added "good behaviour" clause goes above and beyond that language. This is where ethics of "good behaviour" can and should be defined.
 
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SCOTUS is not a branch.

As a former employee of the Judicial Branch, I can say categorically, absolutely without any doubt there MUST be some sort of oversight that is not currently in place.

With some exceptions, Federal Judges are a bunch of raging assholes.

Again, that's said from a former insider.
 
dullard said:
Constitution Article III, Section 1: "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour".

It seems to me that, yes, the judges should have a definition for "good behaviour". It is in the constitution.
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Yup the ball is in Congress's court. They have the authority to act on this. But seeing how one side called 2017-2020 perfectly normal, I'm not holding my breath
 
Lost_in_the_HTTP said:
SCOTUS is not a branch.

As a former employee of the Judicial Branch, I can say categorically, absolutely without any doubt there MUST be some sort of oversight that is not currently in place.

With some exceptions, Federal Judges are a bunch of raging assholes.

Again, that's said from a former insider.
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SCOTUS is the only constitutionally guaranteed and protected part of the judicial branch.

Congress could abolish all the lower courts tomorrow if it wanted to but there is nothing Congress can do to control the conduct of SCOTUS in any way except for impeachment. They can't even ask them to wear pants if they don't want to.
 
dullard said:
There has been some agreement that this clause protects the judges from time limits and from political disagreements. A judge can't be removed from office after a set number of years or just because a politician doesn't like a judges rulings.
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Because someone doesn't like their rulings, no. Because they may have a history of bad rulings needs to be grounds though. The Fifth Circuit is a good example.

dullard said:
And it does seem that there is already a method to remove a bad judge that is convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. So the added "good behaviour" clause goes above and beyond that language. This is where ethics of "good behaviour" can and should be defined.
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Federal Judges have been removed from office, but generally for criminal activity that most others would be arrested for.

If a Federal judge has a bad history, the most frequent action is to encourage/coerce them to retire. That's usually done by the Chief Judge of the District. I saw that more than once. Problem there is they keep their full pension and benefits.

 
dullard said:
Constitution Article III, Section 1: "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour".
Constitution Article II, Section 4: "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"

It seems to me that, yes, the judges should have a definition for "good behaviour". It is in the constitution.

There has been some agreement that this "good behaviour" clause protects the judges from time limits and from political disagreements. A judge can't be removed from office after a set number of years or just because a politician doesn't like a judges rulings. And it does seem that there is already a method to remove a bad judge that is convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors. So the added "good behaviour" clause goes above and beyond that language. This is where ethics of "good behaviour" can and should be defined.
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Is attempted coverup of evidence from the Jan 6 attempted insurrection, bad behavior?
 
HomerJS said:
Is attempted coverup of evidence from the Jan 6 attempted insurrection, bad behavior?
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Assuming Clarence knew of his wife's activities (which is highly likely), then I would say yes.

Now, if there is solid evidence that Ginni Thomas was strongly involved in an insurrection then we don't even need to define bad behavior. Because then coverup of evidence would be materially aiding those who are attempting an overthrow of the government. That is the legal definition of treason and Clarence could theoretically be impeached and convicted.
 
A person with integrity would recuse for the simple act of wanting to be seen as impartial. This whole notion of "we swim in different lanes" is horse shit. You were the only fucking vote against releasing because we all know why.

And yes, lifetime appointments are disaster.
 
I guess the only thing impeachment proceedings would do is attempt to get him to resign. We all know that's not going to happen. It will just make for more republican fuel going into midyears. He'll hang on until there's an R sitting in the Oval office and then peace out for a like minded slug of a replacement.
 
Lifetime appointments were supposed to insulate Judges from the political whims of later Presidents and Legislators. It probably worked for the first hundred years or so, but it has only entrenched political nonsense in recent decades.
 
As mentioned up thread - Lifetime appointments are a mistake.

Thomas isn’t going to quit, he’s going to leave the court in a body bag. Whether that’s next week or in 15 - 20 years we don’t know. He married someone whose cheese has slid off her cracker. We don’t know how much of the QAnon stuff he believes in... but, I have to believe he is less nutty than his wife. But, who knows.

www.nytimes.com

Ginni Thomas Pressed Trump’s Chief of Staff to Overturn 2020 Vote, Texts Show (Published 2022)

Messages between Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife and Mark Meadows are the first evidence that she directly advised the White House to reverse the election results.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

www.nytimes.com

The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas (Published 2022)

The Supreme Court justice and his wife battled for years for a more conservative America. New reporting shows how far she was willing to go after Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

These NYTimes (no paywall) articles demonstrate that Ginni is a crusader, and the common bond she has with Clarence is that they both see themselves as victims - he, of the “high-tech lynching,” and she, of the leftward drift of the country. Her mom was a right-wing activist.

If Clarence had any integrity he would have declined the nom after Anita Hill came forward, or even a few years after his appointment after his penchant for falling asleep during arguments, never asking questions, and rarely if ever authoring opinions even though he is the senior associate justice.

Ginni Thomas is a true believer and she believes a right-wing government is right, necessary, so anything that leads to that end is appropriate. “The end justifies the means.”
I hope there’s a new litmus test at the next SCOTUS nomination: “Do you feel it’s appropriate for a spouse of a justice to be active in political matters that the court may need to opine on?”
At any rate, I guess the best we can hope for Clarence Thomas to be synonymous with “unethical grifter.” But I suspect he’s beyond shame, he believes he deserves this appointment after all he has "been through". 🙄
 
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McConnell and the folks that had him ram those puppets of theirs to the bench sealed the deal where the court needs to be held to some sort of ethics regimen, now more than ever.

The integrity and trustworthiness of the court has been severely damaged by the Repub's efforts at not only stacking the court with religiously influenced activist conservatives, these conservative members of the court are also thoroughly under the influence of their corporate sponsors making a mockery of the implied impartiality these court appointees are supposedly being held to the highest standards of the land.
 
A disturbing number of things in government that everyone thought of as rules, were in fact just gentlemen's agreements or standard conventions that can just be ignored on a whim.

It's past time to codify everything, as these people can't be relied upon to operate under even a semblance of an ethical manner.
 
dainthomas said:
A disturbing number of things in government that everyone thought of as rules, were in fact just gentlemen's agreements or standard conventions that can just be ignored on a whim.

It's past time to codify everything, as these people can't be relied upon to operate under even a semblance of an ethical manner.
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Probably easier to just replace most of it with a computer system that runs off predetermined parameters defined by law.
 
Lost_in_the_HTTP said:
Lifetime appointments were supposed to insulate Judges from the political whims of later Presidents and Legislators. It probably worked for the first hundred years or so, but it has only entrenched political nonsense in recent decades.
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Life expectancy was considerably lower in 1789. Maybe appointments should be for life, as decided back then, but in return you agree only to live as long as you would have done in the 18th century? If you break the agreement either your term is terminated or you are?

(Of course, total life-expectancy from birth isn't relevant, as children don't get appointed to the court and the figures then were reduced by high infant mortality...looking it up, a 50 year old male in 1789 could expect to reach 71, now they'll likely make it to 80)
 
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