What if a Supreme Court Justice refuses to recluse him/herself from a case?

[JEDI]

lets say Chief Justice Roberts has 1M shares of Haliburton. The Court is hearing a case about Haliburton. The lower courts have ruled against Haliburton.

Roberts doesnt recluse himself. Haliburton wins 5-4 thus preserving Roberts share price on his stock.

Is there anything that can be done to Roberts prior to him rendering a vote?

Is there anything that can be done to Haliburton after the crooked vote?

 

[Aegeon]

I'm pretty sure if the situation is outrageous enough the judge can theoretically be impeached for his actions. (It probably would be viable to impeach the judge prior to a verdict being delivered given how the Supreme Court operates.)

The situation would likely have to be pretty outrageous like your example in question for this to actually happen though. In general there are good reasons its not a good idea for Congress to be able to remove Supreme Court Justices too easily.

 

[EagleKeeper]

As stated above, impeachment is a solution.

I do not think that any SCOTUS judge has been impeached or that there has been take about such in Congress.

It seems they are able to properly determine when it is prudent to recluse.

Now a politician may not like the waya judge rules; but that is a different story and should not be impeachable.

 

[CanOWorms]

I do not think that any SCOTUS judge has been impeached or that there has been take about such in Congress.

Chase was impeached in the early 1800s, but was acquitted.

In more modern times, Douglas survived 2 impeachment efforts. Then-Congressman Gerald Ford had an obsession with him due to his lifestyle (lots of marriages and divorces).

 

[nonlnear]

For an act of utterly gross misconduct like you are describing, I think it is entirely appropriate that the only recourse is impeachment. State supreme courts can get their asses handed to them by SCOTUS (like WV's did on just such a matter not long ago), but when you're sitting on the top court in the land there's nobody above you. Thus the only people who could ever touch you must be in other branches of government, and the political threshold for reaching across those separation lines had better be the highest available: impeachment.

I don't know if such a ruling would be vacated or not. If so then it could be reheard directly. If not, it would require an appeal - which would probably be made directly by the AG if impeachment were successful just due to the ensuing political climate. AFAIK any other route to appeal would take a while longer but IANAL. Punishing Haliburton directly would be hard unless there were provable direct influence involved, but vacating a beneficial ruling would at least remove any spoils they might have won.

 

[feralkid]

Just an FYI...the term is "recuse", not "recluse".

 

[Patranus]

The "progressives" make shit up in the constitution all of the time and they don't get impeached so why should Robers?

Saying that intrastate commerce is interstate commerce is "gross misconduct".

 

[sandorski]

Lots of Purell, face mask, and Food Taster takes care of most of it.

 

[nageov3t]

aren't they required to put their investments into a blind trust type of thing? or is that just something that most happen to do?

 

[Double Trouble]

In general, there's very little that could be done no matter what the situation. Yes, theoretically there's the option of impeaching a justice, but there's a tremendous barrier to doing that (which is why it hasn't hardly been done in 200 years). Also, with the congress being split between the parties (control of the houses is split, but also within each house it's split), there's absolutely no way either party would let someone viewed as sharing their ideology get impeached. The idea would be DOA.

 

[Lemon law]

Why pick on just Roberts, Scalia has not recused himself when its almost mandated many times.

 

[PokerGuy]

Oh please, I'm sure I won't hear the same whining when the wise latina doesn't recuse herself from some case. It's only a problem when someone you don't like doesn't recuse themselves right?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Why pick on just Roberts, Scalia has not recused himself when its almost mandated many times.

Oh please, I'm sure I won't hear the same whining when the wise latina doesn't recuse herself from some case. It's only a problem when someone you don't like doesn't recuse themselves right?

Should she recuse herself from any immigration related cases?

 

[airdata]

Meh...

Nobody had a problem w\ Dick Chaney making billions of dollars w\ his Haliburton chronies by going to war in iraq and then having to rebuild all the stuff that had been blown up.

or are people still mad about that?

 

[Craig234]

Should she recuse herself from any immigration related cases?

Should you recuse yourself from brain damage cases?

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Should you recuse yourself from brain damage cases?

Maybe you should ask yourself the same question.


BTW I think you need to get your sarcasm meter re-calibrated.

 

[piasabird]

This makes the assumption that a judge manages his own stock portfolio personally, which could be true and that a judgement would wipe out the stock. Almost every large corporation has law suits or some legal action going against them from different sources and no matter what the decision they just keep running their business. Intel just had a case in the EU corts for over a billion $$ E? Not even a hiccup. It is more likely that a judge knowing what kind of verdict, could order all his stock to be sold. I think if I was a supreme court justice I would have my investments handled by a third party similar to what President Carter did for his peanut business.

 

[nonlnear]

This makes the assumption that a judge manages his own stock portfolio personally, which could be true and that a judgement would wipe out the stock. Almost every large corporation has law suits or some legal action going against them from different sources and no matter what the decision they just keep running their business. Intel just had a case in the EU corts for over a billion $$ E? Not even a hiccup. It is more likely that a judge knowing what kind of verdict, could order all his stock to be sold. I think if I was a supreme court justice I would have my investments handled by a third party similar to what President Carter did for his peanut business.

It's also laughable to think that a SCOTUS justice would obviously throw a verdict for a blip in stock value. When you're at that level of the game, if you are seeking to profit from your power, there are much more effective and safer ways to leverage it.

 

[Ausm]

The Supreme Court is so far to the right I am sure it will be allowed to pass

 

[piasabird]

The Supreme court seems kind of balanced. What drugs have you been taking?

 

[Ausm]

The Supreme court seems kind of balanced. What drugs have you been taking?

Shouldn't you really be asking yourself that question?