Chief justice: Judges must better avoid financial conflicts

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JESSICA GRESKO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says the federal judiciary needs to do more to ensure judges don’t participate in cases where they have financial conflicts of interest.

Roberts made the comments as part of his annual report on the federal judiciary released Friday evening.

Roberts pointed to a series of stories recently in The Wall Street Journal that found that “between 2010 and 2018, 131 federal judges participated in a total of 685 matters involving companies in which they or their families owned shares of stock.” Federal judges and Supreme Court justices are required by law to recuse themselves from cases where they have a personal financial interest.

“Let me be crystal clear: the Judiciary takes this matter seriously. We expect judges to adhere to the highest standards, and those judges violated an ethics rule,” Roberts wrote in the nine-page report.



FILE - The Supreme Court is seen on the first day of the new term, in Washington, Oct. 4, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-us-supreme-court-health-judiciary-john-roberts-aebc82d2ead1ec003c4099ef72642dea

[dalton99a]

1. Or Else!

[SheltieLover]

2. They take it seriously? Have these judges been indicted?

[NQAS]

3. Very seriously

We’ll wag our fingers very vigorously at you.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. And political conflicts.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Yup. Bought and paid for. /nt

[Autumn]

6. The Judiciary takes this matter seriously? As in a strongly worded letter seriously?

[rpannier]

11. He's concerned

See Sen Collins for what its worth

[Autumn]

12. Look up concern and her picture is next to it.

[Grins]

31. ...and the absolute silence from his court about Clarence...

…NOT reporting on the court’s annual disclosure forms tens of thousands in income he earned - every year - going back more than a decade.

Every court in the US has a ethics Code of Conduct.
Except ONE.
Need to guess which…?

[in2herbs]

7. OMG should they be expecting a sternly worded letter from Roberts??? nt

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

32. A letter would be considered too strong for CJR.

He's more the type to text a disapproving emoji:

[meow2u3]

8. I'll believe it when the RW SCOTUS "Justices" recuse themselves

Otherwise, it's nothing but empty threats from CJ Roberts.

[calimary]

15. And they're not gonna pay attention to him.

There are no consequences for doing so. They can just trample their merry way across any part of the Constitution they find inconvenient.

They are agenda-driven.

With apologies to James Carville, it’s the AGENDA, stupid.

[monkeyman1]

9. A person would have to be fubar'd to believe this in this day & age ??????

[NNadir]

10. This is laughable from a "judge" who declared for and licensed corruption in "Citizens United."

He is a political hack, and we have all the political hacks on the Court, from little Ms. Jesus/Trumpie worshipper installed by a corrupt Senator along with a slimy drunk, that they're "honest."

Bullshit Roberts. If America survives you - and it may not - you've taken some of the weight off of Taney, who declared human beings to be farm animals.

Declaring thugs to be honest politicians is not quite as bad, but it strongly leans in that direction.

[PlanetBev]

13. "Chief Justice" Roberts trying to look like he's still in charge

Now that those five Fascists assholes are about to roll over on us. John, you blew your wad on Citizens United and the gutting of the Civil Rights Act.

Your court will go down in infamy.

[Cozmo]

14. Good God Roberts, have you no shame?

[2naSalit]

16. I'm sure that'll do it. ...nt

[turbinetree]

17. Well Johnny can I call you Johnny, maybe you should start with Thomas and his wife and the

insurrection, then lets go to Kavanaugh, and then onward to the other three, with Barrett, Alito, Gorsuch, one was just put there because of a majority asshole fucked over a previous president (and not that orange hair traitor sitting in Florida), one is drunk and was accused of sexual misconduct, along with another one way back in the 80's, another one along with the rest of the bunch are members of the Federalist Society, along with other judges sitting on appeals courts which helped by gutting voting rights for starters and the right to privacy, that has the backing of dark money, because after all money is free speech right Johnny, remember that memorable case .....so you want to talk ethics.....

Maybe its time to expand the courts.... what do you think Johnny...

[mountain grammy]

18. Roberts said he was just an umpire..

worst umpire ever! He's a joke.

[Midnight Writer]

19. Looking at you, Justice Thomas.

His wife Ginny makes a hefty salary running right wing "grassroots" outreach for billionaires.

And Justice Thomas never recuses himself.

[dchill]

20. Ouch! My wrists!

[twodogsbarking]

21. Or what? Double secret probation?

[BlueIdaho]

22. The SC is a partisan joke.

Taking backhanders is the least of their problems. Roberts will go down as the worse Chief Justice ever.

[modrepub]

23. If Only The M$M Treated Financial Conflicts

as well as they do politicians having affairs...

And I have news for all of you, financial conflicts in politics affect both parties. Someone should create a stock index based on all the holdings of members of Congress. That would back engineer a way for lots of folks to take advantage of the same sources of information Congressional member use (to purchase and sell securities).

[DallasNE]

24. Judges Have Other, Worse Conflicts

Any Judge/Justice that "forgets" that we are a secular nation in their rulings have a far worse conflict and a number of them sit on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court now acts as a super legislative body first and foremost but how do you stop it when they have lifetime appointmenst. It screams for term limits and I favor 18 years, which means 1 new Supreme court Justice every 2 years and I would do it in odd years.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

25. Cough cough, Clarence Thomas, Kegger Kavanaugh

[ancianita]

26. Today's NYT raises an issue re sexual harassment claims in the Ninth Circuit, too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/31/us/politics/john-roberts-supreme-court.html

Though Chief Justice Roberts did not mention it, the Supreme Court has not been immune from similar lapses. In 2017, for instance, after participating in the oral arguments in a patent case, the Supreme Court announced that Chief Justice Roberts “has concluded that he should not continue to participate in this case.”

He had discovered, the court said, that he owned 1,212 shares of the parent company of one of the parties in the case. The shares were worth more than $100,000, according to a financial disclosure report.

“The ordinary conflict check conducted in the chief justice’s chambers inadvertently failed to find this potential conflict,” a letter from a court official to lawyers in the patent case said.

In the report issued on Friday, Chief Justice Roberts called for more rigorous ethics training and better systems of conflict checks. He did not address a solution urged by many ethics experts: barring judges from investing in individual stocks.

Chief Justice Roberts also touched on what he called “the continuing concern over inappropriate behavior in the judicial workplace.”

The issue had been a topic in several of the chief justice’s reports since 2017, when Judge Alex Kozinski, who had served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for more than three decades, announced his retirement after The Washington Post reported that some 15 women had accused him of sexual harassment.

The women, many of whom had served as his law clerks, said Judge Kozinski had touched them inappropriately, made unwanted sexual comments and made them watch sexual materials on his computer.

This raises the question of whether John The Pirate Roberts' can claim that, instead of Congress, the judiciary should review its own self, regardless of its few known ethical lapses.

Not to mention that Judge Sotomayor's dissent on the TX and MS challenges to Roe lowers SCOTUS' national credibility with constitutional scholars.

Today in his op-ed letter, retired New York lawyer, Jim Metzler, paraphrases Linda Greenhouse's question about the Roe related rulings:

"Why do these (admittedly) very smart conservative justices have to resort to gaslighting rather than rigorous legal analysis to reach their decision?

The answer, of course, was given by Justice Sonia Sotomayor: They are acting as partisans, not judges...Only by laying the thickest of smoke screens will they be able to convince themselves (but not us) that they are acting as judges, not as politicians in robes."
[no digital link available for today's NYT issue, sorry]

The harassment and investment problems, the "partisans in robes" thinking on Roe pointed out by Justice Sotomayor, and the fact of Roberts' resistance to congressional review, support the argument that Congress and not the judiciary itself should review the judiciary system.

But much as we want judicial reform, we just can't do it with the current Republican composition of the Judiciary Committee, and they would say the same about us Democrats.

The whole issue of judicial reform is given lip service lately, but it can't happen until after 2024, imo.

[NullTuples]

27. This focus on "individual stock ownership" feels like a bit like a red herring

Almost like he's misdirecting away from the real income Justices make on the side from corporate or political connections.

[Ford_Prefect]

28. When you consider that Roberts is responsible for opening the flood of dark money into politics

this all sounds like a case of CYA by him.

[monkeyman1]

29. need to go back to traffic court??

[IzzaNuDay]

30. Really? Closing the gate after the horses left the barn?

Not sure what much good will that do. Please prove me wrong!