A Chief Justice Who Isn’t So Chief

Please be aware this is only my opinion. I have always had an abiding interest in all things in the law including the SCOTUS. I am NOT an attorney.

C.J. John Roberts is and always has been a conservative judge. Some of his opinions I haven’t particularly agreed with, but some I have. He tends to be more moderate in his approach to the law and he does not seem to put his religion on the bench right beside him. He has the responsibility of oversight of the Court. It is that part of his job that I have problems with.

Justices are, in theory, supposed to ‘know the law’ and to render judgements on the cases that come before based solely upon the law as they understand it (both as written and as the people who wrote the law intended for it to be used aka the “spirit of the law”.) It is when they start bringing their own personal biases, whatever that might be, to the bench that we have problems. In this case, we have not one, but FIVE of the justices that are doing just in violation of their oaths. One of them, Clarence Thomas, is openly defying legal ethics by refusing to recuse himself from cases that involve himself and/or his wife, Virginia “Ginnie” Thomas. This is unacceptable on every level of legal and moral ethics.

What makes it worse in my view is that C.J. Roberts is trying to “cover” for him. Now come on here!

Congress and the public are offering to create something that has been needed from the start, but was considered to be “unnecessary” because it was thought that “all justices would have such high moral and ethical character” that an Ethical Standard code would be insulting. Apparently, such is not the case. They can be corrupted by one or more of the most powerful lures of society: sex, money, or power (ideology).

Why is he turning down the help? Good question and one I have no plausible answer to. Presumably, the Federalist Society has something to do with this since they essentially picked all five of the justices involved. I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet. They also have a very tight grip on a number of Senators and Congressmen/women.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am a person of faith myself. I want people of high morals and ethics in our government. However, you can have high morals and ethics and be Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, Atheist, Agnostic, Catholic, Christian of any number of flavors, Shamanic, or whatever. That is why the Founders specifically wrote into the Bill of Rights, 1st Amendment, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (direct quote) and that includes making laws that even indirectly establish a religious viewpoint of ONE PARTICULAR BRANCH OF ONE PARTICULAR RELIGION. The justices are not dumb. They know this. They are aware they are breaching 1st Amendment Rights. They are doing it under the guise of their own religious beliefs. That violates their oaths of office and legal ethics.

Why won’t C.J. Roberts take action and “clean his own house”? Perhaps his sump pump is broken? His wet/dry vacuum is on the fritz? Whatever it is, we’re not seeing any action and that means a headless SCOTUS. That’s bad.

Potential Solutions

• Impeach at least Clarence Thomas for breach of duty of office. You’ve got Justice Jackson on the bench so the race card won’t come into play. Remove him from the bench. Have somebody ready to nominate to replace him.
• Impeach Alito for breach of duty of office. This might be a little harder, but it seems reasonable to me. He’s been running around bragging about what is next on his agenda of laws that he wants to ‘take down’.
• Impeach and remove Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett, and maybe Gorsuch for outright perjury in their confirmation hearing, contempt of the Senate, and a list of other things. Might be difficult to do with the GOP House, but the margin is so slim that it seems possible if they want to negotiate other things.
• Expand the SCOTUS to 13/15 seats. This is LONG overdue. We have had 13 appellate courts for years. The Court get mountains of writs wanting to be heard for every session. There is no way that justice is being adequately served with so many rejections going out. It’s impossible. The logic somebody is using is just plain broken. Take the bench and have half hear the odd numbered Districts this year and the other half hear the even numbered districts. Next year, switch them. Chief Justice would serve as mediator/tie-breaker. We would get a lot more cases heard and decided. Case backlogs would begin to clear out.
• Congress writes Ethical Standards for the SCOTUS with the assistance of the American Bar Association. (Federalist Society to stay OUT of it.) Once signed by the President, the Chief Justice would then have something to enforce conformity of behavior and actions of the justices appointed to the Court. Nothing about this should be ‘optional’.

There are probably others that can add to, change, and comment on my ‘solutions’. I’m aware of that. Most of this is “above my pay grade” especially since I don’t have a pay grade right now. We need to do something SOON. Trouble is, we have a lot of things that need to be handled SOON. Where do you start?

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