U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court Delivers An Ethical Opinion On Democracy, Affirmative Action, and Fairness

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments
Good work, SCOTUS!

Good work, SCOTUS!

In SCHUETTE, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MICHIGAN v COALITION TO DEFEND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, INTEGRATION AND IMMIGRATION RIGHTS AND FIGHT FOR EQUALITY BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY, the U.S. Supreme Court just affirmed, 6-2, Michigan’s right to ban state affirmative action programs. The decision was narrow, not taking up the issue of affirmative action itself, but rather affirming the right of the citizens of the state to ban it at the ballot box.

You should read the decision  here, and not let journalists distort it for you.  My favorite quotes: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

dunce-capSenators should not intentionally set out to make the American public stupid, or to validate invalid ethical constructs. Thus this explanation of his current proposal from Sen. Rand Paul needs to be derided, and should also cause concern for anyone who thinks it’s important for the Republican party to find some leaders who are trustworthy. Paul, in the course of pushing his stillborn, grandstanding plan to use a constitutional amendment to require government bigwigs to live with the same health care laws they impose on the rest of us, said this to The Daily Caller:

“My amendment says basically that everybody including Justice Roberts — who seems to be such a fan of Obamacare — gets it too. See, right now, Justice Roberts is still continuing to have federal employee health insurance subsidized by the taxpayer. And if he likes Obamacare so much, I’m going to give him an amendment that gives Obamacare to Justice Roberts.”

See, the fact that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refused to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional using a highly-controversial legal distinction in no way suggests that he personally “likes” it, and anyone who thinks that is what judicial opinions, especially Supreme Court Opinions, mean is shockingly ignorant of the judicial system, the legal system, the law, the role of judges in society, the Constitution, and by extension, pretty much most of the principles that give government, management and leadership any integrity or competence. The fact that such an anyone has risen to the level of U.S. Senator goes beyond shocking to terrifying. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Charles Geyh and Stephen Gillers

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“Codes of ethics for judges fortify the administration of justice. They tell judges their ethical responsibilities and articulate high standards of conduct to which they should aspire. They assure litigants that a judge before whom they appear is committed to fairness and impartiality. They require judges to conduct their personal and professional lives in a manner that fosters respect for the courts.”

—–Law professors  Charles Geyh and Stephen Gillers, arguing in Politico for the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt a Code of Ethics.

SCOTUS

“Codes of ethics? We don’ need no stinkin’ codes of ethics!”

The U.S. Supreme Court, it might surprise you to know, is the only court in the U.S. without a formal Code of Ethics that its judges are required to follow. The idea appears to be that if one has risen to the tippity-top of the judicial tree, one’s ethics must be impeccable as matter of course.

Right.

On Politico, Charles Geyh and Stephen Gillers make a convincing argument that SCOTUS should not only hold itself to high ethical standards, but also make it clear to all what those standards are.

You can read the entire post here.

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Pointer: Legal Ethics Forum

 

The Legal Ethics Forum’s Top Ten Legal Ethics Stories of 2012

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

top-tenOne of my most consulted ethics resources, both for my ethics practice and Ethics Alarms, is the Legal Ethics Forum, created and operated by attorney John Steele with able assistance from some of the best legal ethics experts and scholars in the nation. John has posted the Forum’s Top Ten Legal Ethics Stories of 2012, which you can, and should, read about in detail here. These are John’s headlines: (Ethics Alarms, which is not written for an exclusively legal audience, has covered six of them, #4, #5, #6, #7, #9 (as well as this gem), and #10.) Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Half of the U.S.A.

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“Who’s Plato?”

According to a recent  Pew poll, almost half of the U.S. is still unaware of last week’s landmark Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act, limiting Congress’s power to control private choices through reliance on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and flagging the Democrat deceit in passing a substantial tax on the middle class while hiding the fact in public and political discourse. 15% of the public must have been watching Fox and CNN the way listeners of Orson Welles “The War of the Worlds” listened to the 1938 radio broadcast, turning the dial before misinformation was clarified. These trusting or lazy souls still think the ACA was over-turned. This is, admittedly, better than thinking the world has been conquered by Martians.

The poll means that as we head into a watershed election that challenges the nation to make hard choices about its future course in tax policy, addressing the debt and deficit, foreign policy, commitment to national defense, entitlement reform, immigration, education, infrastructure renewal, employment, financial regulation, and equally vital matters that could have a decisive impact on America’s success, stability and even survival, one half of the public lack the interest and initiative to  stay current with crucial national developments. Continue reading →

Illegal Immigration Insanity

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I wonder what HE thinks is the sensible way to handle illegal immigration. It can't be much crazier than almost everyone else's opinion.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the legality of Arizona’s anti-immigration legislation, and in today’s Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank, one of the Post’s house liberals who has the integrity to be up-front about it, presented us with a related column that reminded me how ideology can become indistinguishable from insanity.

Illegal immigration is perhaps the best (or worst) illustration of this phenomenon, a problem that requires essential and obvious measures to address, one of which—finding a route to allow current illegal immigrants to achieve legal status—is opposed “on principle” by the Right though there is  no feasible alternative, and the other—taking effective measures to block entry by future illegals and to eliminate the benefits of breaking immigration laws through tougher enforcement—is opposed by the Left on humanitarian grounds, though it is irresponsible, expensive, and dangerous. In the middle of this absurd impasse is the government, which refuses to aggressively enforce the laws on the books, either because of unholy alliances with business interests that want cheap and exploitive labor (the Republicans) or because of a cynical strategy to court a large and growing demographic group to ensure future political power (the Democrats).

In short, Nuts, Nuts, Corrupt and Corrupt. Continue reading →

The Curse of Michael Steele: The Republican National Committee’s Shameful, Outrageous Supreme Court Lie

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Michael Steele, when he was its Chair, brought Republican National Committee operations to a new ethical low that might have been favored by Michael Corleone. He never did anything this despicable, however, perhaps because he was replaced just as he was getting warmed up. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because even Steele knew that some political tactics were just too despicable to engage in.

In a web ad circulated this week designed to attack the health care reform law, the Republican National Committee excerpts the opening seconds of the March 27 presentation to the Supreme Court by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, defending the law’s constitutionality. In the ad, he is heard struggling for words and twice stopping to drink water. “Obamacare,” the ad concludes, in words shown against a photograph of the high court. “It’s a tough sell.”

The transcript and recordings, however, give a different impression. Verrilli took a sip of water just once, paused for a much briefer period and completed his thought — rather than stuttering and trailing off as heard in the ad. In short, the tape was edited by the RNC to misrepresent what occurred inside the halls of the U.S. Supreme Court.

It is a lie, and a particularly heinous one, even by political ad standards, which are a cut below Shamwow and the Fishin’ Magician. Even by Michael Steele standards—he who twice approved fundraising appeals disguised to look like U.S. Census documents. Continue reading →

Here’s a Proposal: Republicans Stop Saying That Obama’s a Muslim, and Democrats Stop Saying that The Supreme Court “Stole” The Presidency For Bush

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Law professor/blogger Ann Althouse properly chastises The National Review’s Jonathan Cohn for designating “Bush v. Gore” as the most earth-shattering case of the 21st Century, and not just because the case, decided in December of 2000, occurred in the 20th Century.

“Ridiculous! I can’t believe Cohn doesn’t know that if the case had gone the other way Gore would still have lost in the end!”, Althouse writes, reminding her readers of the results of the objective, meticulous and multiple recounts performed by journalists in 2001, which showed—much to the surprise of the counters, who were dying to be able to report that Gore had been robbed—that “George W. Bush would have won a hand count of Florida’s disputed ballots if the standard advocated by Al Gore had been used.”

I can believe Cohn wrote what he wrote, because the claim that Bush’s presidency was “stolen” has been a cornerstone of Democratic political warfare and unscrupulous hard Left activists since the chad-counting stopped. It stoked the base, misled the public, increased partisan anger, divided the country and undermined Bush’s presidency, all good things from a partisan perspective (and the truth be damned), just as Republicans have been happy to allow the unjustified doubts about President Obama’s loyalty and citizenship linger among its most fanatic partisans. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Indiana State Senator Dennis Kruse

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Time to reconsider the Greek Gods...because the oldest theories are the best theories.

Indiana State Senator Dennis Kruse is responsible for Senate Bill 89, recently passed by the Indiana Senate, which would allow schools to teach “creation science” — the oxymoron that really means “The Bible” —as an alternative to the scientific Theory of Evolution. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically outlawed this fundamentalist aganda in the 1987 court decision Edwards v. Aguillard. Kruse however, thinks that the bill could lead to a court challenge, and a Supreme Court reversal. “This is a different Supreme Court,” he has said. “This Supreme Court could rule differently.”

It isn’t that different, Senator. They all have law degrees, they’ve all read the Constitution,they’ve all seen “Jurassic Park.” They all have IQs above freezing, unlike…well, never mind. By the way, Kruse is a Republican, as if you hadn’t guessed. Continue reading →

Standards of Decency: Where Ethics Belongs, and Law Does Not

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

If this is the Super Bowl half-time show, will the FCC fine the network?

Slate legal columnist Dahlia Lithwick drives me crazy on a regular basis, but she hit a home run with her tongue-in-cheek account of the oral argument before the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency policy, which has broadcast networks shivering in their boots over the possibility of another “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl or another trash-mouth star saying “fuck” as she picks up an Academy Award. The particular topic before SCOTUS was momentary nudity in TV drama, such as walrus-like actor Dennis Franz’s mega-butt flashing by our horrified eyes on “NYPD Blue.” In an Ethics Hero-worthy moment, attorney Seth Waxman, representing ABC, showed the Court how absurd and arbitrary it is to try to regulate taste and decorum in art. Lithwick writes: Continue reading →