I’m not familiar with that vote. Why would it be at the Supreme Court already before a charge? If Ginny Thomas committed a crime, the local U.S. Attorney can secure an indictment. Clarence has no part to play in that. I would certainly agree that if she is convicted and a cert petition is pending before the Court, he should recuse himself from consideration of that.
Your whole take on this is very odd to me. And, I’m not sure why you’re bringing in UK politics, or even SCOTUS positions on certain subjects. None of that is relevant here.
If you want to bring in Roe, let’s say it was Ginny Thomas who wanted an abortion and Texas law said it was illegal. It gets appealed all the way to the Supreme Court – should Justice Thomas recuse himself?
It’s a good point, let’s leave Roe aside before we go down that rabbit hole.
Thompson v. Trump had nothing to do with Ginny Thomas. It was a legal question whether a former president can invoke executive privilege. To make six or seven leaps of logic to say that Clarence was just trying to protect his wife is the baldest of speculations.
If we are going there, then surely every Justice has had a Christmas party or a few beers with the Thomas family and one might suspect that despite their politics, they don’t want Ginny Thomas to go to prison. And continuing that thought, any federal judge might fear that a ruling against Ginny Thomas would cause the wrath of a Supreme Court Justice to fall on them.
I submit that those are far more real world likely fears than that Donald Trump has something in his presidential papers about Ginny Thomas that could cause her to be convicted of a crime, even though we know she didn’t enter the Capitol building. It’s so remote as to be ridiculous.
And, again, even if Clarence’s ruling was the law, it still wouldn’t stop a prosecutor from investigating what is suspected to be in Trump’s papers and getting the evidence another way, it would just mean that a former president had a right to assert executive privilege, a question of law that deserves full consideration by the Court and transcends Ginny Thomas or any single crime.
Regarding this, my point wasn’t to say that UK politics are relevant. It was to highlight the position that despite promises of neutrality and best efforts, no judge and no person approaches something from a neutral prospective and it is why the recusal of a judge isn’t done for light or speculative reasons, and definitely not done from these leaps of logic.
No one is saying otherwise. The question is, if a spouse of a Justice may be directly involved in dealings before the court, should the Justice recuse?
There is a lot of wiggle room in the word “may” in that sentence. If the question is based upon some wild allegation from a left wing website that perhaps, just because we know how evil Republicans are, that Ginny Thomas “may” have committed a crime related to January 6 so we want anyone who is not Justice Sotomayor to recuse themselves, then I strongly disagree.
I’m not familiar with the allegations against Ginny Thomas, but if they were strong, why is there not an indictment returned against her? And I give no stock to the Thompson v. Trump case because criminal conduct can easily be prosecuted without presidential papers; and Thomas lost his argument anyways, Trump has no executive privilege, but still then, where are the charges?
If allowed generally, doesn’t this always cause a judicial conflict? What if Sotomayor’s husband (and I haven’t googled it and don’t even know if she’s married so it is a hypo) is a member of the ACLU? Won’t she believe that ruling on the left side of issues will help her husband’s career and help the family financially? These permutations are endless and why they are generally disallowed unless the conflict is clear on its face. Unethical parties typically try to force a judicial recusion so they can judge shop, and it is pretty clear that the left would like Thomas’ vote struck from almost any ruling.
If her husband were on the the board of the ACLU and they had a case coming before the court, I would definitely expect her to recuse herself. If he just gave them $100/year to stay a member, not so much.
Correct, and that’s on purpose. Judges should avoid even the appearance of impropriety. From this thread, I understand this case was about investigating the events of that day. It would be impossible to tell whether Ms. Thomas did anything wrong without investigating, and Justice Thomas’s ruling would have stopped part of that investigation had he prevailed.
You’ve given the easy issues. What if there is say, a First Amendment question that comes before the Court about the separation of church and state, one where the ACLU does not represent either party, but the decision “may” financially benefit her husband because it “may” promote him in the organization and people “may” think that he promised to deliver his wife’s vote in the case, even though we all know she would have voted that way anyways? I think that is this case.
Agreed, but this is overused and is the bane of my existence when a potential client or current client demands I file a motion for the judge to recuse. The Supreme Court has no rules about recusal and it is completely up to the judge. The best recent case was the Massey case, from my state, in which a Supreme Court Justice heard a case where the Defendant provided more than half of his campaign funds in a close election. A 5-4 held that to be an “appearance of impropriety.” It really has to be that bad, not the piling on of inferences.
ETA: Thomas’ rule would not have “stopped” any investigation, but would have held as part of the law that a former president can assert executive privilege, which I would have expected him to rule that way in any case.
Is Ginni Thomas on the board of any entity which has “a case coming before the court”?
I don’t know if you read the article linked in the OP. But from that article:
D.C. Circuit Judge Nina Pillard, for example, voted not to rehear a case rejecting President Trump’s refusal to produce his tax returns in response to a congressional subpoena. That was exactly what her husband, the ACLU’s litigation director, advocated in an article reviewing the lower court decision.
Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a liberal icon, participated in a case even after his wife—the chief of an ACLU chapter—commented on the lower court opinion. Her ACLU chapter even submitted a brief to the district court. Reinhardt defended his decision not to recuse, writing his wife’s “views are hers, not mine, and I do not in any way condition my opinions on the positions she takes regarding any issues.” Ethics experts defended Reinhardt’s decision, noting that “Judge Reinhardt is not presumed to be the reservoir and carrier of his wife’s beliefs… A contrary outcome would deem a judge’s spouse unable to hold most any position of advocacy, creating what amounts to a marriage penalty.”
Consistent with the Court’s policy, even though Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s husband, Marty Ginsburg, practiced law at a firm that represented parties before the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg never recused herself. Law professor Jane Ginsburg, the Justice’s daughter, wrote an article about a case pending before the Supreme Court. The petitioner cited Jane’s article in its brief, and Justice Ginsburg voted for the result advocated by her daughter.
If the ACLU was a party to the case and your wife is involved in their handling of it then yes, you recuse yourself if your spouse is a party. It’s not fair to the other side if the plaintiff is the judge’s spouse. If the ACLU is submitting an amicus brief you don’t have to recuse. I mean even if the spouse isn’t an advocate, you can assume sometimes the judge will talk about a case with the spouse.
~Max
No, but the ACLU example was UV’s, not mine. You’ll have to ask him what the relevance was.
As to your other cases, I’m not saying that Thomas should recuse himself even though his wife is a strong advocate of conservative causes. I’m saying that her actions on January 6th, not her conservative positions or statements, her actions may be cause for recusal for some cases that revolve around that day.
Also, to be factually correct, Thomas did not rule again the committee or prohibit any investigation. He would have stayed the Sixth Circuit’s mandate so the Court could consider the important matter of whether a former president can claim executive privilege.
But looking further, the Court didn’t even go that far. It held that even if Trump was the incumbent president that his claims of executive privilege would fail under controlling case law.
So Thomas didn’t “stop” or “rule against” anything. He just wanted to stay the mandate and have the Court fully consider it.
OK, but a lot of other people are saying that. See e.g. this article in the New Yorker Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court? | The New Yorker.
The examples of her activism which trouble the New Yorker writer and various experts consulted seem less than the examples cited by the Newsweek article, and which did not attract any notice. Hence the thread.
The relevance of the ACLU is that this is the only evidence that Ginny Thomas had to the case. This idea that she committed a crime is respectfully very absurd and the left wants to go fishing into Trump’s documents for the hope that there is something in there without any real evidence. She has done just what you described: advocated for conservative causes, admittedly some pretty extreme ones.
If she participated in the protests on January 6th, she also may have tried to overturn our democracy, but whatever. That’s probably an argument for another thread. In this thread, the arguments have been that her actions, not her advocacy, is what could grounds for recusal.
I don’t see people arguing for that in this thread, though.
In any case, I’m getting way over my skis here when it comes to judicial precedent, advocacy, and so on, and I’m not comfortable arguing this one way or the other.
If you could humor me, is there a link somewhere to a (preferably reputable) website that puts forward at a minimum a prima facie case that she committed a crime? I’ve only heard this through the filter of far left websites. She wasn’t even there on January 6, right? So even if she previously said something like, “This election is a fraud; we have to take our country back and stop Pence from certifying the vote!” then that is still no crime under the Brandenburg test. I fear that this accusation of criminal activity is just nonsense.
False:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/14/politics/ginni-thomas-interview-january-6/index.html
No, I have no evidence she committed a crime. She says she played no role in planning it, or the assault on the capitol itself, but I don’t know if that’s true. It seems like there are new revelations on this all the time, but so many folks are stonewalling Congress on this that it’s hard to tell who was involved with what.
I appreciate you doing my work for me.
However, color me unimpressed. The only thing in that article is that she attended a rally on the ellipse on January 6. That is her constitutional right.
When there is a suggestion (not a guess that maybe she possibly might have, as possibly you or I committed crimes at some point in the past) with at least something that suggests she did more than exercise her rights as a free citizen, then I’ll hear an argument that Clarence should have recused himself.
I respectfully think the proposition that he should have done so is outrageous and ridiculous.
ETA: Further, why does anyone think that Trump’s material would have something about her, which is what Thomas’ ruling was about on a “stay” motion, not the ultimate issue.
Fine by me. This is already way deeper into this subject than I ever intended to wade. If your position can be argued against, others will have to do the arguing.
Actually, no, this isn’t the idea of concern. The problem is that Clarence Thomas might rule a certain way to keep his wife out of legal jeopardy. Which she may very well be, due to her involvement in the January 6th rallies that preceded the riots.