How would you feel if you were involved in a trial (and lost) and then later found that the judge who ruled against you in your trial was interviewing for a job with your opponent in the trial, while the trial was going on, and then found that the judge was awarded the job a week after the case was over?
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18 Comments
Link?
Here. You haven’t heard about this?
Sounds pretty jacked up.
don’t believe everything you read, the way you read it.
I don’t, but the facts are pretty clear in this case. There are no opinions being debated; it’s a clear timeline based on info provided from Roberts itself.
Please feel free to explain how this is NOT a completely obvious conflict of interest that would cause any decent judge to recuse himself from the trial.
Also, please steer clear of the classic tactic of attacking the character or credibility of the messengers in an attempt to avoid discussing the real issue.
The fact that no one should believe everything they read is obvious, but doesn’t really have any relevance to this story.
For one you might point out that he was not the only judge, but one of a three judge panel that incidentally made unanimous decisions in all but one count.
Regardless if this was a conflict of interest or not I think that is important information that should be included.
Not really. The decision(s) made in the case is/are completely irrelevant to the issue of impropriety being discussed. Even if he ruled against the administration, it would still have been wrong for him to be involved in the trial.
I don’t even necessarily think that anyone is accusing him of his decisions in the case being influenced by the situation. Well , actually some may be accusing that, but the whole point of avoiding conflicts of interest like this is that any such accusations (or denials for that matter) are merely speculation.
The main problem remains that any honest judge would have to, in good conscience, recuse himself from a trial in such a situation. It doesn’t make ANY difference whatsoever if he claims that he would still be impartial, OR that there are other judges involved who would somehow balance out any potential impropriety.
This is basic law school 101 type stuff, and we’re talking about a supreme court justice here. It’s ridiculous.
This Washington Post article (not an opinion piece) doesn’t make it sound so ridiculous.
http://tinyurl.com/8uaqx
By the way, if it was three judges who ruled against me and since the one judge you point out was not influenced by anything other than the facts of the case, then I guess I’d feel like I lost fair and square.
Judging from the fact that you posted a blog on this subject in the manner that you did, I’m assuming that you don’t approve of the Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court. Please tell me what you don’t like about Roberts, besides possibly that he was nominated by George W.
You guys are both still missing the point completely. It doesn’t matter who the judge is, what his political affiliations are, or what decisions he ends up making; interviewing for a job with a defendant in a case you are presiding over is unethical.
Saying that he was or was not influenced by the situation is (as I said before) pure speculation. The ethical standard of judges avoiding conflicts of interest is that they should avoid such situations and any appearance of potential impropriety, even if they feel or claim that they can be impartial.
This has nothing to do with Roberts personally, or the Bush administration for that matter; just that it was unethical for Roberts not to step down, plain and simple.
As for his nomination, I personally didn’t think he was the best choice, but after hearing of this clearly unethical behavior, I think he should be disqualified.
I’m not missing your point. I just don’t think it’s as strong as you think. From the article I linked to earlier:
I don’t think so; there’s a huge difference between a general group like “all judges in the DC circuit who are eager to gain an eventual Supreme Court appointment (which don’t open up that often)” and someone who was personally being actively interviewed for a job that was soon to be available.
Also, this isn’t just a generic “matter involving the federal government”, it was a case specifically about this administration, with Rumsfeld listed in the case name and the president himself specifically named as a co-defendant.
In any event, Roberts should have recused himself from the case as soon as he began interviewing for the position. I can’t really see how that isn’t obvious to everyone.
As in my example above, if you have a judge on any case who becomes involved in any way with either party of the trial outside of the context of the trial, that judge should recuse himself to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.
I think that is is not obvious to a lot of people because they either are experts in the field and have a deep understanding of the system and do not see this as a problem or they are not experts but are willing to defer to experts judgment for now rather than jump to conclusions.
I did NOT miss your point! I got your point right away. I just wanted to bring up a question. Is that against your blog rules?
If you thought Roberts was not the best person for the nomination, I’m asking you why? That is, BEFORE you heard about this other situation. And if you think there was someone else better, who? And why?
Sorry, I wasn’t implying that you didn’t get it, just that it seemed like you were trying to steer it into being about Roberts’ qualifications and/or political affiliations, which isn’t relevant to this particular matter.
I wanted to avoid discussing my opinion on Roberts as a nominee (outside of this specific issue) for the same reason.
If you’re interested in my take on him in particular, I don’t think it would surprise you that I feel he’s a little too far “right” for my tastes. His decision in this case itself (which again - isn’t related to my point above, I would make the same point if he went the other way) is a good example of why I can’t back him politically.
That being said, I’ll have to admit that even a democratic president probably couldn’t pick a nominee that would be “liberal” enough for me, and I also don’t have an issue with the president choosing Roberts in this case, since it clearly lines up with his opinion / strategy of who he (and his party) wants on the court. I wouldn’t expect anything different, and I’m not complaining about it. As a side comment (to a side comment), that whole “litmus test” politically correct lingo that the administration keeps spouting is the biggest load of crap that I’ve heard in a while, but I don’t want to get off topic too far.
Anyway, like I said, I have no complaints about Roberts nomination itself, as he’s probably qualified (according to what the president is looking for) to be on the court. I’m just saying that his unethical actions in this case call into question his wisdom and credibility.
As for Nate’s point - sure, some “experts” may be willing to say that it’s not technically unethical, but I’m sure just as many will say that it is, so I don’t think that argument is going to go anywhere. I just don’t think it’s that complicated of an issue. Even in any lower court case, such behavior by a judge would clearly be grounds for a mistrial and probably disciplinary action against the judge.
The fact that you would put experts in quotes when referring to someone who specializes in legal ethics shows how unreasonable you are being. Do you think the Washington Post just went out and interviewed some fringe professor who was willing to parrot the Bush administration position. That is, as you say, ridiculous.
No, I’m not saying that this guy isn’t an expert, only that there are many experts that have differing opinions. There are no official rules that govern who can be called (or call themselves) an “expert” on any subject, so that’s what I was referring to, not this particular guy.
Furthermore, I think I adequately pointed out (in the comment before the last one) the differences between his statement of opinion (which was very general, talking about all judges in the DC circuit) and this specific case. He starts by giving a very generalized statement, and then saying “I don’t think you can fault Roberts”, but that is misleading in my opinion, because he’s setting up a broader situation and then attempting to judge the circumstance based on that, rather than what specifically happened in this individual situation.