LAW FROM THE CENTER

Something's rotten in the state of Scalia: Senators Leahy and Lieberman have sent a letter to Chief Justice Rehnquist asking him to explain the propriety of Justice Scalia going on a hunting trip with Vice President Cheney when there is a case pending before the court in which VP Cheney is a party. Story here. "In a letter to Rehnquist, Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut asked the chief justice to tell them what 'canons, procedures and rules' are in place to determine when justices should recuse themselves from cases."

I'll tell you what standards there are: none. "The code of conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States applies to all federal judges but is only advisory and nonbinding on Supreme Court justices." CODE OF JUDICIAL CONDUCT. And we can't glean any knowledge from the chief justice's book, The Supreme Court; there's not one mention of a justice recusing him/herself. Probably what the Chief Justice will respond with is something like general principles of fairness, along with an assurance that no appearance of impropriety exists.

Let me tell you...it smelled to CNN, it smells to me, and I have a feeling it will smell to a lot of people, readers of this weblog included. It doesn't matter if anything improper happened or didn't happen: "[A]voiding the appearance of impropriety is as important as avoiding impropriety itself." United States v. Berman, 28 MJ 615, 616 (AFCMR 1989).