#judicial impartiality

Regardless of emoluments, Justice Alito has shown that he's the most fervent MAGA justice on the US Supreme Court. He now even beats out Justice Thomas.

Samuel Alito Can’t Even Lie Properly About That Upside-Down Flag

At the very least, Alito needs to recuse himself from all Trump-related court cases. Though frankly, he should be impeached.

Alito was appointed to SCOTUS by George W. Bush. Bush won the 2000 election after the Supreme Court stopped vote recounting in Florida as Democrat Al Gore was closing the gap with Bush. And we remember that Alito wrote the majority opinion in the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

This is about far more than decorum; this is about global warming and the dinosaurs that welcome it.

After his initial email, Randolph followed up with a four-page memo to another colleague, in which he expanded on his concerns about the seminar, which was described in the invitation as “neutral, objective information.”

Randolph viewed it differently, saying in his memo that judges attending a climate science program put on by the Environmental Law Institute “lend credence to one side of the climate change debate that is quite improper” because of a host of litigation on the issue.

Experts on judicial ethics said the appeals court judge should have issued an apology directly to Sullivan and suggested that Randolph should recuse himself from cases involving climate change.

Tuesday morning, Randolph was listed as one of three judges to hear arguments Sept. 6 in a case brought by California and more than a dozen other states challenging an Environmental Protection Agency decision to scrap some vehicle emissions standards.

Just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, the court calendar was updated, and Randolph’s name was replaced. The clerk’s office and Randolph declined to comment on the change.

Revisiting R v. S. (R.D.), 1997: A Case About a Black Judge on “Trial” for Acquitting a Black Boy

Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi on Pexels.com

“It wasn’t that long ago in Canada when our justice system put a Black judge on trial for acquitting a Black boy of allegedly running his bike into an officer’s leg – her offence? Speaking truth to power by stating that sometimes police over-react when dealing with Black youth.” – Professor David Tanovich @dtanovich 

In R v S. (R.D.), 1997 CanLII 324 (SCC),…

Last Monday, Judge Jeffrey Goering granted a temporary restraining order barring Dr. Mila Means from offering abortions in her Wichita office, which had been requested by the buliding's owner, Foliage Development Inc. In October 2009, Goering made a $100 donation to the Kansans for Life Political Action Committee. The PAC is connected to Kansans for Life, one of the groups leading the campaign to keep Means from providing abortions in Wichita.

...

Goering isn't the only judge in the district whose ties to anti-abortion groups have raised conflict-of-interest concerns. Fellow Sedgwick County Judge Anthony Powell was staunchly anti-abortion during his tenure in the state legislature and had to recuse himself from handling a 2007 lawsuit against Tiller due to his vocal support for anti-abortion causes. Another district judge, Eric Yost, made six separate $100 donations to the Kansans for Life PAC in 2009, and the group has recognized him with its "Pro-Life Patriot" award.

While Goering's contribution may not violate the judicial code of conduct, it certainly does raise questions about his impartiality, says Adam Skaggs, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. "Any judge who rules on an issue that they have been associated with by funding an organization that works on that issue creates, at the very least, the appearance of problems," he says. "In any situation where a judge has given, they should step aside from hearing a case involving such an issue."

The same applies to judges on the other side of the issue.

From Kansas Judge Under Fire for Dismissing Charges Against Late-Term Abortion Doctor:

Abortion opponents filed an ethics complaint Thursday against a judge who dismissed 30 misdemeanor criminal charges against one of the few U.S. doctors to perform late-term abortions. The complaint alleges District Judge Paul W. Clark violated rules of judicial conduct by not disclosing that he had received campaign contributions in 2004 from a law firm representing Dr. George Tiller and Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston. Former Attorney General Phill Kline had filed the criminal case against Tiller in December, accusing the doctor of performing illegal late-term abortions and failing to properly report the details to state health officials. Clark dismissed the charges on jurisdictional grounds. He agreed with Foulston that Kline didn't have the legal authority to file a criminal case against Tiller in Sedgwick County because the county district attorney hadn't consented to it. Kline argued that the attorney general can file such a case anywhere in the state. ... "When you have an overt appearance of impropriety, it diminishes the public trust in the judicial system," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, whose group backed the complaint.