Legal Writing

Recuse Who?

The National Law Journal recently posted this article titled “Supreme Court Issues Landmark Ruling on Judicial Recusal.” Here’s the intro:

In a landmark ruling that could affect state judicial elections nationwide, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that due process requires a state judge to recuse when a party in a case before him or her has had a “significant or disproportionate” influence on placing the judge on the court through a large campaign donation.

The problem with the intro is this — recuse, a transitive verb, has a subject (a state judge) but no object. Transitive verbs require both.

Full post as published by Set in Style on June 08, 2009 (boomark / email).