Posted on 12/31/2011 8:24:14 PM PST by Nachum
In the face of a growing controversy over whether two Supreme Court justices should disqualify themselves from the challenge to the 2010 health care overhaul law, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Saturday defended the court’s ethical standards.
The chief justice’s comments came in his annual report on the state of the federal judiciary. In it, he made what amounted to a vigorous defense of Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan, who are facing calls to disqualify themselves from hearing the health care case, which will be argued over three days in late March. He did not, however, mention the justices by name.
“I have complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “They are jurists of exceptional integrity and experience whose character and fitness have been examined through a rigorous appointment and confirmation process.”
Federal law requires that judges disqualify themselves when they have a financial interest in a case, have given advice or expressed an opinion “concerning the merits of the particular case” or when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” For lower court judges, such a decision can be reviewed by a higher court, but the Supreme Court has no such review.
(Excerpt) Read more at patdollard.com ...
I was thinking the same thing.
Article doesn’t really say what the headline does.
If Thomas’ wife were Bawwwwnnnneeeeeyyy Frank, there would be no issue.
Roberts has children, no?
I think Roberts is gonna turn on conservatism. It’s a pattern. sigh
KAGAN??? ROBERTS DEFENDS KAGAN?
WHAT A FREAKING (long string of deleted bad words)!!!
I’m sick.
Yup, the twin carpet munchers that Zero appointed is just the beginning, if the communist bastard gets re-elected
Kagan is NOT a Supreme Court justice. She is an leftwing activist placed on the SCOTUS by Barry Soetoro.
“They are jurists of exceptional integrity and experience whose character and fitness have been examined through a rigorous appointment and confirmation process.”
This from the guy that swore in the Usurper.
And to think I was so happy when Roberts became Chief Justice. Since 2008 all I want to do is hurl.
Yeah, those are two equal situations...
I have believed for almost 3 years there was something in Roberts not tuned to the belief of the Founders. It began when he gave Obama that private in chambers redo of the oath of office instead of taking a few moments and redoing the oath publicly. Is there anyone who besides Roberts and Obama who can honestly, knowingly and validly say how the redo oath was worded. I recall it was done without use the Bible. Either he was a shill or just plain foolish. Too many judges and politicians drink from the same cup as Obama and his enablers.
Read Mark Levin’s Men In Black. The Supine Court has always been a cesspool. It has harbored racists, bigots and social engineers since it’s inception. The biggest mistake that can be made is to attribute nobility and character to those occupying the bench. By their fruits and no excuses.
SCOTUS MAKES ME SICK!! THEY are sooooo afraid of Obama they are pitiful! We The People are so screwed!
Three words from the cesspool:
Roe Versus Wade.
I’m with you. Read the article. I’m just wondering what everyone here thinks he was supposed to say? He’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. If he says Kagan should recuse herself over Obamacare, then he will also have to say Thomas should as well, especially if he wants to maintain impartiality or at least the appearance of it.
I have said from the beginning that they will not overturn Ocare, if the do then they have cost the taxpayer several hundred billion dollars for no reason.
They are implementing the plan as fast as they can, and there will be no undoing it. All in the progressive plan. Politicians have been letting the court take the blame for their progressive agenda for decades, we should be used to it.
Better to toss a few hundred billion than squander multiple trillions
They are not afraid of Obama, they just happen to agree with his agenda, as all good progressives do.
Well it’s too early to say that Roberts will turn liberal, or ‘evolve’ as the champions of judicial activism like to say about Republican’s long list of mistaken Sup Court picks. So far he has voted the right way on pretty much everything, including high profile Second Amendment and partial-birth abortion cases.
This sounds more like a case of the top judge defending his club. That may be rather innocent and without much consequence, or it may indicate that while conservative in his jurisprudence, he nonetheless sees the judiciary as somehow superior to the other branches, as if they are on an elevated plain. So we can probably be sure that if for example the idea and practice of judicial supremacy is ever challenged under his watch, he will defend it vigorously. And on that, I would guess the same would be true of the other 3 good judges. Part of the reason why judges like Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito are superior to the 4 leftwing usurpers and the unpredictable (in a bad way) Kennedy is that they can restrain themselves. They don’t seek to rule the country and impose their beliefs from the bench. But this restraint is voluntary...I have no doubt that all four of the good judges firmly believe that the Sup Court does properly have the final word on all things Constitutional, and that their decisions MUST be obeyed.
Gingrich is dreadful, but I do applaud him for saying he would ignore particularly awful Sup Court decisions. That is the only way that the Constitutionally unsound and unfounded practice of judicial supremacy will ever be successfully challenged. Therefore it will probably never be successfully challenged.
The point is they could have taken this case at anytime but they have put it off until it probably couldn’t be undone if they wanted to, but they don’t want to.
“If there is a major grassroots revival of conservatism then a SCOTUS may react according to b) if it’s balanced or right-leaning and go along with the idea of reintroducing some limits on government.
IMHO...”
Last seen in the 1920s.
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