US Supreme Court needs more scrutiny, not less

https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/commentary-alito-is-wrong-us-supreme-court-needs-more-scrutiny-not-less/article_bd3af988-f352-11ed-bc4b-3341d82665ef.html

by hhs • 3 years ago

30 39 3 years ago

postandcourier.com

elmerfud5• 3 years ago

It's interesting that the complaint for scrutiny comes now when loud liberal voices are upset with current rulings. When the rulings favored the liberal agenda there was no calls for scrutiny everything was just fine. Anyone who said anything different was told it doesn't matter it's totally fine.

Never mind the fact that all the complaints that are made today against the current Court could be made against past justices. The call for scrutiny seems to be about neutering one branch of government and less about any actual problem. Because if people and Congress really cared about corruption they would look to themselves first. Where are the calls for the scrutiny of all the Congressional members that just happened to magically sell off vast amounts of stocks right before the legislation was announced for the covid lockdowns that crashed the market. They didn't want any scrutiny then.

What I never see in any of these articles about justices getting favors or gifts or this and that is any link that influenced the outcome of a case. You'd think that would be readily apparent because the opinions and views of these justices are known they've held them for decades. The rulings they make are very consistent to the point that scholars can predict the outcomes of nearly every case. So if them having friendships with powerful people and receiving gifts were influencing the outcomes of cases we would see inconsistent rulings happening. We don't see that at all.

You can disagree with the ruling to strike down roe v Wade you can disagree with the bruin ruling. You can disagree with the ruling striking down the Tillman act but what you can't do is say that these rulings were inconsistent with the views and the history of the justices who made the rulings.

Without pointing out inconsistencies in the rulings of the justices everything in this article is absolute garbage and useless. It's just someone whining that they didn't like the rulings not that scrutiny or ethics would have changed the ruling. Because the easiest thing to do is to shout down someone you can make no argument against. Because if there's corruption if there's an ethics violations that are influencing rulings that should be easy to point out but where is the evidence?

clipsy• 3 years ago

No one stopped you or anyone else from investigating liberal justices for ethics violations, nor is anyone currently stopping you.

elmerfud5• 3 years ago

I think you're missing my point I don't see a reason to investigate the justices. Because these gifts have been known about for a long time but there is never any evidence that they influence. Justices rule extremely consistent over the course of their career. Especially in the decade leading up to their service on the supreme Court.

The entire point of ethics rules is because things can influence outcome. Those rules get made because there is evidence that at least for some people things influenced outcomes. You have a grand total of nine people at any given time that are in the same court for a long long time. In my entire life I have never seen any evidence that for supreme Court justices things influenced their ruling. The history of the justices predicts their current rulings and does it amazingly well.

That is the counter evidence to say that these gifts are a problem to them. If they're not having an influence on their ruling they're not a problem. It may be something that we don't like because we might feel personally that it would influence us. But I find it hysterical that the people making the claims are the most influenced by gifts to change their votes.

daft_pink• 3 years ago

I think we're really just complaining about the tribalism. It's like our country is full of very left and very right people, and they are just keeping score and fighting for whichever side they think will benefit their tribe. They aren't happy about the conservative majority, so they just write hit piece after hit piece so their tribe can win. The news has become toxic.

superchroma• 3 years ago

We've seen people in high places be plied and exhibit favoritism as a result of remarkably unremarkable gifts.

Sucks to be a justice but I don't think there are any acceptable gifts.

elmerfud5• 3 years ago

It is correct we have seen this but we have never seen this actually occur in the supreme Court. We have seen the gifts be given we have seen them be befriended by certain people. The strange thing is with Court judges they are actually working all the time. Arguments getting made to them when they are technically off the clock. So while the possibility of gifts influencing an outcome is there we need to see evidence that it actually occurred. Should be easy when you have 20 30 years of rulings behind you and suddenly you reverse course on an issue you were always opposed to.

The real place where we see gifts influence outcomes is in Congress. We see that consistently. We see members of Congress argue staunchly for one point and then a few weeks later the vote comes and they will vote completely opposite and you will look at their financing and all of a sudden they got a bump from somewhere. You will see fiercely libertarian people like Rand Paul all of a sudden be anti libertarian. Congress acts wildly inconsistent from one bill to the next. The people can hold them accountable every two or six years. No one does because the people don't care it seems.

All of a sudden though Congress wants to neuter a third branch of government because it gets in the way of their agenda. Where is the money coming from to influence this because there is no evidence supreme Court justices have been influenced and are ruling inconsistent from their. But there is mountains of evidence that Congress is heavily influenced by money.

SamoyedFurFluff• 3 years ago

I mean, consider the very popular liberal new deal policies that were repeatedly blocked by the Supreme Court. The outcry was so great from the people that the Supreme Court had to walk back, because the representatives of the people (the politicians) were going to act to curtail them. I don’t see the difference between that and now.

infamouscow• 3 years ago

Maybe because illiberal rulings are wildly less popular than liberal ones? And illiberal rulings are often full of logical inconsistencies and ahistorical nonsense?

By definition, virtually nothing post-WWI can be regarded as illiberal in any strict sense in the Western world. Can you please describe what you mean exactly rather than using silly rhetoric?

The dobs decision was full of historical inaccuracies to justify the decision.

Okay. And? If you read the decision, it wasn't based on historical epistemology in the way you're trying to portray. Please stop promulgating misinformation.

notacoward4• 3 years ago

all the complaints that are made today against the current Court could be made against past justices

A strong claim requiring strong evidence. Where's the evidence that any past justice took 38 trips worth millions of dollars from multiple billionaires with business before the court, and then tried to cover them up?

It's just someone whining that they didn't like the rulings

Attributing motive, and falsely. It's not about the rulings. It's about the impropriety of accepting gifts that any other federal employee including lower-court judges would not be allowed to, and trying to hide the fact that those gifts were received. We can't read minds. We can't prove for certain that the gifts affected rulings, but there are reasons that such rules exist for many other people both in government and elsewhere. Even the worst president in history, whoever you think that is, behaved more ethically.

elmerfud5• 3 years ago

Ruth Bader Ginsburg did this as well. Again I didn't see any influence in how she would rule based upon the cases before the court during her time. Just as I don't see it now.

It's actually very easy to have evidence if gifts affected rulings. Are the rulings that they made inconsistent with their past rulings? Would that be absolute proof, no but it would be strong evidence. We don't see that not with past justices who have done the same thing and not with the current justices. Instead we see them rule incredibly consistently.

I understand that there is a very vocal half of the country that doesn't like the conservative balance of the supreme Court currently. There was a vocal half of the country that didn't like the liberal balance of the supreme Court in the past. The problem is this veiled call for scrutiny as an excuse to neuter the powers of the supreme Court by Congress is something completely new.

woodruffw• 3 years ago

Where are the calls for the scrutiny of all the Congressional members that just happened to magically sell off vast amounts of stocks right before the legislation was announced for the covid lockdowns that crashed the market. They didn't want any scrutiny then.

I don't know what you're talking about. Popular support for limiting congressional stock trading is overwhelming[1]; there was a bipartisan bill announced just last month aimed at capping it[2].

Edit: It's worth noting that a variant of this bill has been introduced many times over the years. It's typically the Democrats who introduce it; only recently has it (apparently) received bipartisan attention.

[1] https://pro-assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2022/10/251...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/07/20/1188869588/sen-gillibrand-dis...

cykotic• 3 years ago

That Thomas has taken very expensive gifts from people with cases he ruled on is enough evidence of wrongdoing. One does not need any more information. In such a position as judge, member of Congress, or President the appearance of impropriety is enough. The Clinton's made $200 million since he was President. That's evidence enough of his corruption.

That others are corrupt though is not germane to whether or not Thomas and other members of the court are corrupt. By the way, there have been lots of calls for scrutiny of Congressmen who sold stocks at opportune times.

ecf• 3 years ago

When the rulings favored the liberal agenda there was no calls for scrutiny everything was just

I’m curious as to what you mean when you say liberal agenda.

tastyfreeze• 3 years ago

Not the OP but I suspect its something along the lines of social welfare, gun control, and accessibility of abortions.

polemic• 3 years ago

It's interesting that the complaint for scrutiny comes now when loud liberal voices are upset with current rulings.

FWIW, the scrutiny first came about because Justice Thomas's wife was involved in an insurrection against the government.

ironman1478• 3 years ago

There is actually a whole podcast called 5-4 that goes over how illogical and partisan the court is and always has been. Every episode is a specific case. They go over the actual arguments and show why they don't work. You can educate yourself there.

Also, you're pointing out that the rulings are consistent with the views of the judges. This is missing the point because what if you have set A of judges with views X and set B of judges with views Y afterwards and they overturn or gut A's rulings? It's an admission of partisanship and outcome bias, which the supreme Court is not supposed to have. The problem isnt that an individual judge is inconsistent, it's that different sets of judges are inconsistent. It be like if when a company changes it's board they go from car company, to gamedev, to crypto, to defense, etc. How would that be a desirable result?

dyeje• 3 years ago

Aren’t justices groomed for the court decades in advance? Why would you expect inconsistencies when they’re selected in the beginning for their ideology?

camel_Snake• 3 years ago

What I never see in any of these articles about justices getting favors or gifts or this and that is any link that influenced the outcome of a case.

Ethical guidelines are established not just to prevent bribery and corruption, but also to prevent the appearance of bribery and corruption. Public faith in institutions, especially ones as powerful and far-reaching as SCOTUS, is important and shouldn't be brushed aside.

As to the rest of your point - it's hard to disprove a negative. There have been justices that have 'evolved' or grown throughout their tenure - Roberts is a current example. The kind of social leverage that providing round trip flights on your private jet to view the unveiling of a portrait of yourself[1] can absolutely be applied to ensure adherence to 'predicted' outcomes of opinions. Kavanaugh has been the swing vote on several recent decisions, and the early leaking of the Dobbs draft opinion strongly implies the application of this kind of social pressure to a Justice like Kavanaugh.

You may think this kind of herd-mentality extreme when it comes to such a vaunted position but the absolute requirement that conservative scotus nominees belong to the Federalist Society is just another example of this sad reality.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-bil...

pseudo0• 3 years ago

Kavanaugh has been the swing vote on several recent decisions, and the early leaking of the Dobbs draft opinion strongly implies the application of this kind of social pressure to a Justice like Kavanaugh.

A left-wing radical attempted to assassinate Kavenaugh because of that leaked decision. It seems far more likely that the leak was a form of stochastic terrorism designed to scare the court into upholding the status quo.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh_assassinatio...

ameister14• 3 years ago

This is funny because I literally took the MPRE today.

You don't need to show evidence of quid pro quo corruption for judicial ethics violations to have occurred.

I'd point you to the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili...

"A judge shall uphold and promote the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety *and the appearance of impropriety.*"

further, rule 3.13(A) states: "A judge shall not accept any gifts, loans, bequests, benefits, or other things of value, if acceptance is prohibited by law *or would appear to a reasonable person* to undermine the judge’s independence, integrity, or impartiality."

How about rule 2.11(A)(3), which states a judge must disqualify themselves from a proceeding where "The judge knows that he or she, individually or as a fiduciary, or the judge’s spouse, domestic partner, parent, or child, or any other member of the judge’s family residing in the judge’s household, has an economic interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding."

smitty1e• 3 years ago

It's interesting that the complaint for scrutiny comes now when loud liberal voices are upset with current rulings.

The polarization of the reporting is astounding.

Other justices doing legal but questionable things receive zero attention.

Tired of the gaslighting and bullying from one side of the aisle. King tired. Sofa king tired.

xracy• 3 years ago

What I never see in any of these articles about justices getting favors or gifts or this and that is any link that influenced the outcome of a case. You'd think that would be readily apparent because the opinions and views of these justices are known they've held them for decades. The rulings they make are very consistent to the point that scholars can predict the outcomes of nearly every case. So if them having friendships with powerful people and receiving gifts were influencing the outcomes of cases we would see inconsistent rulings happening. We don't see that at all.

I think you just haven't actually read anything about the Clarence Thomas information in the past 3 months? There are specific Harlan Crow interests that have been amici briefs in cases on which he has judged. That's pretty cut and dry as this go.

But it looks to me based on this statement that the standard of proof for you is going to be "Please show me the check with the memo line that says 'I gave this check for your vote on the Supreme Court'" And anything short of that isn't going to cut it for you. That's not the way corruption works. It's not a one-off. You go back to the corrupted well, and you start to justify it to yourself as not corrupt, because "he's just my friend, and we have an understanding and see eye-to-eye."

Pretending that Harlan Crow doesn't have more influence on the court than you or I do because of his payments to Thomas is willful blindness to corruption.

Also, there have been equally questionable things about liberal justices. I don't care, I want more transparency from all of them, absolutely. But the don't pretend this is a liberal conservative thing when there's a clear case of corruption on the table. All of the justices voted against stricter scrutiny, and that's suspicious to me.

warning262• 3 years ago

Really this should be a bipartisan issue. Lifetime appointments are a perfect fit for ethics violations.

thrill• 3 years ago

It already is a bipartisan "issue" - removal of a Justice is an impeachment process.

warning262• 3 years ago

Sure, but that ignores how the process is actually working in practice. The number of successful Supreme Court impeachments (only 1, over the course of more than 100 years) should tell you that the system as-is isn’t working.

rufus_foreman• 3 years ago

Isn't it the exact opposite?

If you need to get reelected every few years, you need some help. It would be easy to compromise.

If you don't need to get reelected ever for the rest of your life, why would you compromise?

TheCaptain48152• 3 years ago

These attacks on the Supreme Court are a subtle way to overthrow a government you disagree with.

cafard• 3 years ago

Are they? A couple of years ago, I had to remind some disgruntled friends that a very popular president, at the height of his popularity, put out the idea of expanding the court, and failed entirely. You could look it up.

Thomas Jefferson, who had solid majorities, tried and failed to remove the obnoxious Federalist Samuel Chase.

How about "This pissing in the wind is a subtle way to change a weather pattern you dislike?"

TheCaptain48152• 3 years ago

Yes they are. Look at how FDR threatened the Supreme Court during his presidency to get his way. The courts have always been attacked by the left to push their political agenda.

WarOnPrivacy• 3 years ago

The overthrowing of the the Supreme Court is done. It's been years in the making https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/how-conser...

and the attacks have been fueled by vast sums of money https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-scotus-electi...

notacoward4• 3 years ago

That's a weird assumption - that the court, and only the court, represents the real government. It's like the "unitary executive" theory but for the court. Here's an idea: the US constitution defines three branches, none subservient to the others. If any were to take precedence, most people would point to the elected branches. In common parlance "the government" mostly refers to the executive, sometimes the legislature, never the judiciary. Supporting justices who are overstepping their bounds by legislating from the bench (and quite likely doing so at donors' behest) is a not-so-subtle way to overthrow a government.

US Supreme Court needs more scrutiny, not less

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