3 ms·

What can we do about this kind of stuff happening from a legal perspective? Supreme court justices are appointed for life and basically have no real "checks"

• SllX 3y ago
  Congress, if any of this were actual bribery and if they had the numbers for an impeachment and removal proceeding. At most the Justices need to fill out their paperwork better.
  • dylan604 3y ago
    As if any congress critter would be willing to stand up and make this accusation knowing the kind of things they've accepted in order to get to their position.
    • SllX 3y ago
      Well impeachment is a political choice more than a legal one, and to be blunt, I haven’t seen a damn thing in any of these pieces that looks particularly damning; just that as a matter of course the Justices should also take better care to follow whatever procedures they’re subject to since they’re not expected to show leniency to anyone who doesn’t follow the procedures of the court when they have business before the court.
  • zerocrates 3y ago
    The chance of either party going along with impeaching a justice "on their side" when the opposing party controls the White House and Senate is approximately zero. This is sort of like proposals for various things that involve constitutional amendments: unthinkable in the current climate. Maybe there's a level of wrongdoing where their own voters would demand it, but I think it's generally more likely for voters to demand hard-nosed partisanship. Not that these particular allegations really get anywhere near the level where this would be a question.
    • SllX 3y ago
      Agreed on all counts.
  • HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Thomas could pull a trump and shoot someone on 5th ave. and he wouldn't get impeached.
• kemayo 3y ago
  Nominally the "check" on this would be impeachment-and-removal, I guess. In practice, given the current partisan environment and the very high vote requirement (2/3 of the Senate), I rather doubt it'll ever happen unless something even more ridiculously corrupt-looking than the current (quite corrupt-looking) news occurs...
• dfxm12 3y ago
  It's tough because the SCOTUS was kind of designed to be far removed from voters. You'll have to talk to your representatives in congress about this, or vote for candidates who want to do something about it. Congress can impose laws, impeach current justices, and/or add new justices (who hopefully aren't as corrupt) to dilute the influence of obviously corrupt justices. The majority of long time members of congress probably will be hesitant to do anything because they are probably guilty of similar things themselves though - see recent news stories about insider trading. With this in mind, pay attention to your primary elections!
• alistairSH 3y ago
  A few things come to mind... - Impeaching federal judges isn't unheard of, though with today's hyper-partisan Congress, unlikely to happen. - While federal judges have life appointments, nothing in the Constitution prevents a "term limit" on a particular judge/court pairing. IE, we could move Supremes to a lower federal court after 15 years without amending the Constitution. - We could demand POTUS and Congress stop appointing assholes and crooks to the bench. But, that's about as likely as the first bullet.
  • marcusverus 3y ago
    > While federal judges have life appointments, nothing in the Constitution prevents a "term limit" on a particular judge/court pairing. Are you sure? The constitution says: > The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour… That seems rather unambiguous to me.
    • alistairSH 3y ago
      Sure? No. But the idea isn't completely ridiculous. We already allow Supremes to "retire" as senior judges (where they sit on lower benches - O'Connor did this, IIRC). The proposal to enforce this after some term of service is just an extension of the idea. It basically interprets "their Offices" to mean "office of federal jurist" as opposed to the specific role to which the judge was appointed.
      • gameman144 3y ago
        I'm not sure this would hold up to scrutiny, as the office of Supreme Court Justice and federal judge are different offices. The extreme version of this is that we'd obviously not get away with interpreting their office to be "civil servant"and shuffling them off to the DMV.
        • alistairSH 3y ago
          Different offices, but the process for a Supreme to retire and move to "normal federal judge" already exists - no re-confirmation or other antics required. Of course, SCOTUS would end up being the ultimate arbiter here, so quite likely a non-starter for that reason alone.
• rayiner 3y ago
  It’s a fundamental trade off in the system. The branches of government are insulated from each other by design. In many other countries, it’s common for high court judges to be removed and replaced for political reasons. That creates a different set of problems.
• fundad 3y ago
  We have to organize to disobey SCOTUS decisions.