Quote:
Originally posted by Not Me
Agreed. Now whether he should have been transported at taxpayer's expense to a duck hunting trip, though, is a different issue.
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Whether he should have accepted a free vacation from a government contracting corporation at all is a different issue, too.
For those of you keeping track at home, we're now arguing over whether it is reasonable to suggest that a Supreme Court justice who sits on a case in which the defendant joined him on a free vacation, transportation included, paid for by the litigant's former company,
while the case was pending, might not be impartial. In other words, we're arguing whether
suggesting that the judge recuse himself is
unreasonable. The question is not whether this Supreme Court justice has the ability to overlook his ties to the litigant, but whether it is unreasonable to
question his partiality. That's a low bar, people. For good reason.
If he were a district court judge and didn't recuse himself under those circumstances, he'd be disciplined for having brought ill repute upon the judiciary and undermining public confidence in the institution.
Keep in mind that, if memory serves, Thomas recused himself from the VMI case because his son attended the school.
