NEW YORK — Justice Elena Kagan is maintaining her public drive for an enforcement mechanism for the Supreme Courtroom’s ethics code regardless of strident criticism from some voices on the appropriate and skepticism about it amongst some authorized ethics students.
“It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that we comply with our own code of conduct going forward in the future. It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that people have confidence that we’re doing exactly that,” Kagan mentioned throughout an look Monday at New York College Faculty of Legislation. “So, it seems like a salutary thing for the court.”
Kagan effusively praised the ethics code the excessive court docket adopted final November beneath intense stress from Democratic lawmakers that adopted a sequence of press stories about undisclosed items to a few of her colleagues and behind-the-scenes efforts to affect the justices.
“I think it’s a good ethics code,” Kagan mentioned, including that some departures from guidelines for lower-court judges have been justified by the Supreme Courtroom’s distinctive position atop the judicial department.
Nevertheless, Kagan additionally defended her name — first issued at a judicial convention in California in July — for an exterior enforcement mechanism that could possibly be overseen by retired or extremely skilled judges. She scoffed on the notion that such a panel can be too deferential to the justices.
“Judges … they’re not so afraid of us,” Kagan mentioned. “I think that that’s in the picking, basically. And I think that there are plenty of judges around this country who could do a task like that in a very fair minded and serious way.”
The Obama appointee additionally mentioned she didn’t assume such a mechanism would produce a flurry of frivolous allegations towards the justices. The panel charged with enforcement may type out meritless allegations, she mentioned.
Kagan didn’t say whether or not her colleagues have privately mentioned an enforcement regime or the place they stand on it, though Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson mentioned in a current interview that she was open to it.
Kagan additionally declined to deal with a report in ProPublica that the the pinnacle of a conservative group that usually brings circumstances to the excessive court docket, Kelly Shackelford of the First Liberty Institute, described earlier feedback by Kagan on the topic as “somewhat treasonous.”
Kagan joked that the outline sounded akin to being “somewhat pregnant,” however wouldn’t handle it instantly. “I don’t want to dignify it any further,” she mentioned.
Shackelford wrote to Kagan Monday apologizing for the remark, First Liberty spokesperson Hiram Sasser mentioned. “Kelly sent a letter saying he should not have assumed she was inviting other branches to control the court and he should not have used that word,” Sasser mentioned.
At the same time as Kagan leaned into her name for the justices to undertake an enforcement mechanism, she didn’t repeat a suggestion she made final 12 months that Congress’ energy to dictate ethics guidelines for the court docket was properly established.
“Can Congress do various things to regulate the Supreme Court? I think the answer is: yes,” she informed a judicial convention in Oregon final summer time. Her remark was a riposte to Justice Samuel Alito, who has mentioned the Structure didn’t give Congress energy to dictate the court docket’s ethics processes.
On Monday, Kagan mentioned she was steering away from commenting on Congress’ energy. “I don’t want to say anything about that because, you know, one day, who knows, I might have to decide a case involving that,” she mentioned.
Kagan didn’t clarify or acknowledge the shift, however in July President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — who’s the Democratic presidential nominee — endorsed the notion of a legislation imposing an externally-enforced ethics code for the excessive court docket, in addition to time period limits for justices.
Throughout an hourlong on-stage interview at a luncheon for a girls’s authorized management middle, NYU Professor Melissa Murray requested Kagan about future penalties of the Supreme Courtroom’s 2022 resolution overturning the federal constitutional proper to abortion. Justice Clarence Thomas prompt on the time that precedents guaranteeing rights to contraception and same-sex marriage may also sometime be overturned beneath the identical authorized rationale.
“This analysis that you’ve just applied to abortion … it applies to a lot of other things,” mentioned Kagan, who dissented from the court docket’s far-reaching abortion ruling two years in the past. “Just as a matter of logic, that point is true,” the justice added, though she stopped wanting saying whether or not she thought the excessive court docket would transfer towards repealing these different rights anytime quickly, or ever.
Kagan additionally shared some particulars in regards to the justices’ personal pastimes, together with that one matter of behind-the-scenes chatter on the court docket is golf. “Justice Kavanaugh is a good golfer and the chief justice is a good golfer,” Kagan mentioned, including that Chief Justice John Roberts’ spouse, Jane Roberts, is “very good, too.”
Kagan mentioned the shared curiosity in golf contributes to the court docket’s camaraderie, however ought to solely matter to the general public if it leads the justices to extra give-and-take with their colleagues in regards to the court docket’s official enterprise. On that rating, she was extra opaque, saying: “The proof is in the pudding, right?”
