Ethics

NYT editorial on Justice Scalia's planned speech to the Conservative Constitutional Seminar

Here's the editorial, which is part of a sustained effort by the NYT to address judicial ethics.  The paper's argument rests upon its determination of which political positions are politically "extreme" and which aren't and, we are told, the Tea Party is outside the lines.  While I am skeptical of the NYT position (because I see them as playing a political game through the rhetoric of ethics), I find Justice Scalia to have a bad sense of how to handle these issues.  Two solutions for the Justice are to "run silent, run deep" or avoid all but the most banal, innocuous speaking opportunities, carefully avoiding saying anything worth listening to.  But he seems to love to argue, debate, and talk about the law, and banalities just aren't part of his make-up.  The third solution is to conspicuously accept some speaking invitations from entities across the political spectrum.  For every time you speak to the Federalist Society, balance it with a speech to an organization like ACS.  If you speak to a tea party event, then speak to a progressive group a little further left.  At that point, anyone playing politics through the rhetoric of "judicial ethics" would be forced to argue that justices should retreat into the cloister.

Full post as published by Legal Ethics Forum on December 24, 2010 (boomark / email).