Law Commons^™

The Propriety Of A Judge's Failure To Recuse When Being Considered For Another Position, Ronald Rotunda

Ronald D. Rotunda

Some commentators have argued that Judge John Roberts, recently confirmed as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, violated a federal statute because of his failure to recuse himself in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which a panel of the D.C. Circuit including Roberts recently decided. Several Senators raised the issue of Judge Roberts' failure to recuse himself during the course of his confirmation hearings, but the Judge did not comment on it because the case was still pending.

Any proposed "jobs recusal" rule, which would require a judge to recuse himself in such circumstances, imposes costs that …

Judicial Ethics, The Appearance Of Impropriety, And The Proposed New Aba Judicial Code, Ronald D. Rotunda

Ronald D. Rotunda

We sometimes think, loosely, that ethics is good and that therefore more is better than less. But more is not better than less, if the more exacts higher costs, measured in terms of vague rules that impose unnecessary and excessive burdens. Overly-vague ethics rules impose costs on the judicial system and the litigants, which we should weigh when determining whether to impose ill-defined and indefinite ethics prohibitions on judges. Unnecessarily imprecise ethics rules allow and tempt critics, with minimum effort, to levy a plausible and serious charge that the judge has violated the ethics rules. Overuse not only invites abuse …