Going to have to agree with my honey’s lawyer here.
Things would be a lot easier if judges were only beholden to their judicial oaths. In practice, they can have allegiances with many things that draw a cloud over the impartiality of their judgments — allegiances to their spouses or their parents, not to mention the almighty dollar. When the parties involved risk clouding a judge’s neutrality on the matters before them, they can and should recuse themselves from the case. Unfortunately, even judges don’t always do what they are supposed to do. When they choose not to recuse themselves, there isn’t always recourse to remedy their decisions. ProPublica recently published a deep dive on the difficulty of normalizing and enforcing recusals:
In an examination of more than 1,200 federal judges and state supreme court justices, ProPublica, in partnership with student journalists at Boston University, found dozens of judges, including both Republican and Democratic appointees, who chose not to recuse when facing potential appearances of impropriety involving familial financial connections. Ethics experts say that the judges’ interpretation of the rules may often lie within the letter of the law, but at the expense of its spirit.
The problem isn’t without solutions, but the proposed fixes don’t have everyone on board.
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law proposed a series of reforms in 2016, including independent review of all motions for disqualification — at both the U.S. and state supreme courts — so judges don’t effectively serve as the final arbiters of their own biases. Brennan also advocated ending the common practice of judges keeping their reasons for recusal — or non-recusal — secret, which can stymie the appeals process and create a void in case law.
We’d love to see such reform in play, if only to read the mental gymnastics of Thomas and Alito arguing how their respective best friend and resident flag flyers had no influence on their rationale for why the Constitution is totally okay with Trump staging a coup or becoming King. And while every case doesn’t have the same amount of gravitas, fighting your case only to find out that the judge didn’t tell you that their partner benefited from the ruling is the type of sandbagging nobody should have to deal with.
Even When Big Cases Intersect With Their Families’ Interests, Many Judges Choose Not to Recuse [ProPublica]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
#DoubleCheck #Judge #Isnt #Power #Couple
