Scalia-Cheney tie gives appearance of rigged system.THE most troubling aspect of Antonin Scalia's duck-hunting trip with Dick Cheney is that Scalia sees nothing troubling about it. The Supreme Court justice brushes off concerns that his off-the-bench conduct casts doubt on his on-the-bench objectivity in a major lawsuit against the rice president. However sharp his legal mind, on this matter Scalia misses an essential point about the law, not to mention judicial ethics. The question is, how could he? Federal law says any justice or judge "shall disqualify To deprive of eligibility or render unfit; to disable or incapacitate. To be disqualified is to be stripped of legal capacity. A wife would be disqualified as a juror in her husband's trial for murder due to the nature of their relationship. himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The issue is not whether judges think they can be fair. No matter how perfect their neutrality, they must get off the case if there is solid reason for an objective, informed observer to doubt it. Is it reasonable to question the impartiality of a judge who vacations as the guest of someone being sued while the lawsuit is pending in the judge's court? Well, of course it is. Cheney took Scalia and one of the justice's daughters aboard a military jet, dubbed dub 1 tr.v. dubbed, dub·bing, dubs 1. To tap lightly on the shoulder by way of conferring knighthood. 2. To honor with a new title or description. 3. Air Force Two, on Jan. 5 from Washington, D.C., to Morgan City Morgan City, city (1990 pop. 14,531), St. Mary parish, S La., a fishing port on the Atchafalaya River (connected to the Intracoastal Waterway); inc. 1860 as Brasher, renamed 1876. The city is headquarters for offshore petroleum drilling and has oil and gas wells. , La. to hunt ducks at a private camp, the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). reported. Cheney stayed two days, Scalia and his daughter a while longer, the Times said. Planned in November, the trip took place three weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case Cheney had lost before a federal judge, and on appeal, too. The lower courts ordered him to give the groups suing him, Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club Sierra Club, national organization in the United States dedicated to the preservation and expansion of the world's parks, wildlife, and wilderness areas. Founded (1892) in California by a group led by the Scottish-American conservationist John Muir, the Sierra Club , certain documents about his Energy Task Force. The groups allege corporate insiders were secretly invited to help write the administration's energy policy while others, such as environmentalists, were shut out. The hunting trip is "a perfect parallel" to the circumstances that prompted the lawsuit, said David Bookbinder book·bind·ing n. The art, trade, or profession of binding books. book  bind , legal
director of the Sierra Club. Both involve special access to power.
As duck hunters, Scalia and Cheney were the guests of--get this--an energy industry executive. They stayed at a hunting camp owned by Wallace Carline car·line or car·lin n. Scots A woman, especially an old one. [Middle English kerling, from Old Norse, from karl, man.] , founder and president of Diamond Services Corp., which supplies services and equipment for pumping oil out of the Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east . The episode is doubly troubling because it's the second time in a year that Scalia put himself in a situation that prompts reasonable questions about his impartiality. Last October he stepped aside in the other case, which asks whether the "under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance, in full, Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, oath that proclaims loyalty to the United States. and its national symbol. is constitutional. It has yet to be decided. Scalia recused himself because he publicly expressed his opinion about the case last January, giving the impression he had prejudged it. Scalia thinks he had the right to take the trip and the right to stay on the case. "Social contacts with high-level executive officials (including Cabinet officers) have never been thought improper for judges who may have before them cases in which those people are involved in their official capacity, as opposed to their personal capacity," Scalia wrote to the Times. No one knows whether Scalia's relationship with his hunting pal will taint taint an unpleasant odor and flavor in a human foodstuff of animal origin. Caused by the ingestion of the substance, commonly a plant such as Hexham scent, or while in storage, e.g. milk stored with pineapples, or as a result of animal metabolism, e.g. boar taint. his legal judgment. We can only hope he won't give it a chance to. Just maybe he will come to understand why outsiders fear a locked circle of insiders who don't even acknowledge that the game looks rigged. Ann Woolner is a columnist with Bloomberg News. |
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