Opinion: Supreme Court Justices Just Wanna Have Fun

Photo byBing AI Image Creator - Author's prompt

When is a gift, not a bribe?

Perhaps when it’s for your child, father-in-law, a boss on her birthday, or a Secret Santa party before Christmas. When it’s from your heart to another, no strings attached.

When are you not being influenced by someone’s actions, words, or gifts?

When there’s no direct connection between what is being said, done, or offered and any decision you will be making personally or as part of a group.

Rules are based on some principles whether written or not.

A red sign on the corner means stop, because if you don’t you could end up hurt or dead. But many people run through them anyway.

A rule for government officials to not accept gifts would not exist - at all - if government contracts were worth $1500. But because they are worth $billions and because human nature is what it is, rules exist.

Judges sit on benches - more like a dais or throne, but let’s not quibble - and preside over cases where their unbiased opinions are essential for the law to function properly and equitably.

ProPublica just released another expose - this time on Justice Alito, who in 2008 took an unreported trip on a private jet to a high-end resort in Alaska, paid for by a hedge fund billionaire who had ongoing cases coming before the supreme court.

Now Justice Alito said - in a Wall Street Journal Op/Ed piece - that he saw no problem there. That what he did was well within his rights and he violated no rules. And offered that reports that he drank $1000 bottles of wine were untrue. Apparently, they weren’t all that good.

As to the seat he occupied on a private jet, well, he said it would have been left empty if he hadn’t taken it, so there was no real concern there either.

Question: Would you want an umpire calling balls and strike in a World Series game if one of the starting pitchers was his nephew?

ProPublica also recently reported on fellow justices, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Chief Justice Roberts all because there were what appeared to be usual financial favors, or circumstances happening around the Supreme Court.

Favors like free vacations, valued at over $100,000 and paid for by another billionaire (Harlan Crow) whose cases also came before the court.

Or where Chief Justice Roberts’ wife earned over $10 million in recruiting commissions over a several-year period, for allegedly using her husband’s sphere of influence to recruit for high-end law firms.

Or back to Justice Alito when a case before the court in 2014 dealt with Paul Singer, the hedge fund billionaire, and fellow fisherman whose case against Argentina was found in his favor to the tune of $2.4 billion.

In listening to their responses and their adept ways of avoiding answering the question behind the question, one might wonder why these wise men, whose sole purpose was to judge the merits of a case before them fairly, were finding it so difficult to find the truth.

Question: When many politicians are asked a question - not what’s the square root of 1806 - but a straightforward question - do you ever wonder why they never seem to answer them?

Now not every dinner is a bribe and not every bottle of wine is an attempt to influence you. Whoever you are.

But if you and a few of your associates at say, a Silicone Valley tech firm are taken out for lunch at Red Lobster, nobody back in HR is likely to send up a red flag about the freebie.

But if you happened to be a sitting judge on say, the US Supreme Court, and were taken on a private jet and flown, say, 4000 miles to a posh resort in Alaska, and if you “hardly knew” the guy who owned the plane and was paying the tab, wouldn’t you ask yourself - why is he doing this?

Or would you assume, he was just a “friend of the court” who appreciated a good work ethic and dedication to public service?

There have been attempts to get the Supreme Court to pass its own ethics code to help them define the limits and boundaries concerning what is good and impartial behavior for them.

But thus far they have resisted this.

With several judges dissenting, stating that it’s unnecessary. They know full well where the limits are and they have not been going beyond them.

I beg to differ. I believe they suffer from the same human conditions that we struggle with.

They like being acknowledged for what they do. Because we often are not.

They like being treated in a way that shows appreciation for their efforts - not just today’s but those in the past that helped them get to where they are right now. Because all too often our efforts are ignored.

They like the good things in life and when offered up - find it just as difficult as the rest of us to see where that proverbial line is drawn between right and wrong.

Question: If someone buys you a Happy Meal at McDonald’s is he seriously trying to influence you or that would only happen at $1000 for a bottle of wine?

We don’t expect sitting justices to be perfect when we’re not.

We don’t expect sitting justices to be without sin, having never crossed a road against the light, or failed to return change when overpaid at the checkout counter.

We don’t expect sitting justices to be reclusive, shunning all events, all nights out, and all efforts to be kind and conversational.

But we do expect these sitting judges to be smarter than how they are currently behaving.

Going on a cruise or vacation or having someone pay your nephew’s tuition or buy your aunt or grandmother’s house when they have cases before the court is NOT the same as buying you a latte.

And to try to claim it really doesn’t matter sounds suspiciously like a four-year-old trying hard to not get a time-out for covering their little brother in flour.

We deserve better at this level. We need to demand better at this level.

Our Supreme Court is being influenced by outsiders. People with a vested interest in which way a decision goes and if we don’t start expecting better behavior from all seven sitting justices, we simply won’t get it.