Is it a sign of a healthy judiciary when the country’s largest professional association of lawyers has to formally vote on whether Supreme Court justices should follow basic ethical rules? Asking for an American in the year 2025.
Earlier today, the American Bar Association unanimously adopted a resolution urging the justices to implement a binding and enforceable ethics code — one that, at minimum, meets the standards already required of lower federal judges.
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Chief Justice Roberts will not do a damn thing. That’s not fair. He might characterize it as a dangerous attack on the federal courts to suggest justices shouldn’t be stuffing their pockets with billionaire money like they’re in the money booth from Concentration, Or he might ignore it and write another lengthy diatribe about typewriters. In either event, he won’t do anything to actually address the ethical quagmire.
The resolution, proposed by the New York City Bar Association and co-sponsored by the King County Bar Association of Washington, is hardly radical. As City Bar President Muhammad U. Faridi put it, ensuring the Supreme Court adheres to the “highest ethical standards” is about protecting public confidence in the Court. But Roberts compared people being mean to the Court on Twitter to judges having crosses burned in their yards in the 60s so he’s got to be cooking up quite the disingenuous analogy for this one.
The ethics debate is not partisan except to the extent one side of the ideological aisle is disproportionately caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Clarence Thomas has been enjoying undisclosed luxury vacations (and then some), Sam Alito’s moonlighting as an aristocrat (literally), and Chief Justice John Roberts defiantly insists that any attempt to hold the justices to an ethical standard amounts to a constitutional crisis.
In late 2023, the Supreme Court tried to defuse mounting criticism by releasing a “Code of Conduct” with no enforcement mechanism, no penalties for violations, and no meaningful changes to how the justices operate. It turned upside down faster than an American flag at the Alito home.
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The idea that the most powerful court in the country should be held to the same standard as a district court judge shouldn’t be controversial. And yet, here we are, still having to talk about it.
Public trust in the Supreme Court is already in freefall. If the justices continue to ignore calls for real ethics reform, they’re only proving the critics right. And at some point, even this Court will have to recognize that legitimacy is — like they’ll soon say about citizenship — not a birthright.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.