Accepting gifts from someone who has business before the Court in exchange for allowing your legal opinion in his case to be influenced is unethical and illegal.
Accepting gifts from a friend who has business before the Court can, depending on the facts and circumstances, create the appearance of impropriety even if such gifts are not int…
Accepting gifts from someone who has business before the Court in exchange for allowing your legal opinion in his case to be influenced is unethical and illegal.
Accepting gifts from a friend who has business before the Court can, depending on the facts and circumstances, create the appearance of impropriety even if such gifts are not intended to and do not in fact influence any opinion.
Accepting gifts from a friend who has no business before the Court whatsoever is not improper at all no matter how generous the friend or lavish the gifts. It is the appearance of impropriety only to those who cannot think very clearly.
My thinking is exceptionally clear, counselor. Any justice who accepts gifts as large as Clarence Thomas did should remain in private practice, not on the Supreme Court.
To think otherwise is to be blind as to how much accepting those gifts tarnishes the image of SCOTUS as being an impartial arbiter of facts.
Perhaps your own thinking is muddied by being part of that institution for most of your life. Gift-taking of such magnitude looks bad to the public, period, which is why presidents are forbidden to accept them.
To dismiss the public’s suspicion of ulterior motives as “only to those cannot think very clearly” is the arrogance that makes the public write off our institutions as “to hell with them all, they’re all corrupt.”
The notion that a judge should be prohibited from benefiting from the generosity of a close friend when neither such friend nor his generosity has any reasonable or discernable connection with the judge's duties is grounded not in reason but in envy. I also believe you are mistaken about the rules for US Presidents, at least as they pertain to domestic gifts.
By arrogant I don’t mean you personally. You seem quite thoughtful to me given our conversation. But the public is less and less trusting of SCOTUS, and wide-open gift-taking makes it worse. The practice should end now.
Accepting gifts from someone who has business before the Court in exchange for allowing your legal opinion in his case to be influenced is unethical and illegal.
Accepting gifts from a friend who has business before the Court can, depending on the facts and circumstances, create the appearance of impropriety even if such gifts are not intended to and do not in fact influence any opinion.
Accepting gifts from a friend who has no business before the Court whatsoever is not improper at all no matter how generous the friend or lavish the gifts. It is the appearance of impropriety only to those who cannot think very clearly.
My thinking is exceptionally clear, counselor. Any justice who accepts gifts as large as Clarence Thomas did should remain in private practice, not on the Supreme Court.
To think otherwise is to be blind as to how much accepting those gifts tarnishes the image of SCOTUS as being an impartial arbiter of facts.
Perhaps your own thinking is muddied by being part of that institution for most of your life. Gift-taking of such magnitude looks bad to the public, period, which is why presidents are forbidden to accept them.
To dismiss the public’s suspicion of ulterior motives as “only to those cannot think very clearly” is the arrogance that makes the public write off our institutions as “to hell with them all, they’re all corrupt.”
The notion that a judge should be prohibited from benefiting from the generosity of a close friend when neither such friend nor his generosity has any reasonable or discernable connection with the judge's duties is grounded not in reason but in envy. I also believe you are mistaken about the rules for US Presidents, at least as they pertain to domestic gifts.
Envy. Of course. Why didn't I think of that? There couldn't possibly be an ethical concern over this level of gift-giving to the Supremes.
By arrogant I don’t mean you personally. You seem quite thoughtful to me given our conversation. But the public is less and less trusting of SCOTUS, and wide-open gift-taking makes it worse. The practice should end now.