[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Thu Jun 20 10:20:30 UTC 2002


On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, Miller, Jeremy wrote:
> Can one impeach a judge, according to our Constitition?
> I don't remember seing that one could.  Someone should look.

I really should know this.

I don't believe the Constitution provides a method for removing a Justice
from the Supreme Court.

Judges in lower courts are not in Constitutionally defined posts and are
covered by different sets of rules.

However, it is possible to bring charges against a Supreme Court Justice
and the successful prosecution of those charges can result in
inelligibility to stand as a Justice or, more likely, cause such scandal
as to force the Justice to resign or shame the Court and destroy the
public's faith.

There's probably more to it and some other option.  There's been a whole
lot of talk about it for the past eighteen months or so, since lots of
people believe that three of the current Justices have shown their
unsuitability for the position and failure to heed the law.

[In case you're all interested, those would be Justices Scalia, Thomas,
and O'Connor.  All three failed to recuse themselves in the case Bush v.
Gore in December, 2000 despite having a personal stake in the outcome of
the case (and, hence, a clear conflict of interest).  O'Connor had made
the following two statements publicly: "I'm hoping to retire in the next
five years." and "I will not retire under a Democratic President."  Since
the Bush v. Gore case decided the outcome of a Presidential election that
would extend to the end of O'Connor's five year personal deadline, her
pesronal stake in the outcome is clear.  Justice Thomas' wife was named as
co-chair of George W. Bush's cabinet selection committee, should Mr. Bush
win the election.  Justice Thomas' personal stake in the outcome is clear.  
Scalia has two sons who work for the law firm that represented Bush in
Bush v. Gore; one on the case directly.  Justice Scalia's personal stake
is clear.  Yet, none of these three recused themselves and all of the
three voted in favor of Bush.

There are several other serious points of law where the Justices either
failed to acknowledge existing law or made decisions based on circular
reasoning or assumptions not in evidence, all of which would be grounds
for appeal, but none of which are grounds for charges against individual
Justices.]

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
   -----------------
 [cc] counter-copyright
 http://www.openlaw.org





More information about the PLUG-talk mailing list