Supreme Court on ethics issues: Not broken, no fix needed

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is speaking with one voice in response to recent criticism of the justices’ ethical practices: No need to fix what isn’t broken. Charles Geyh, an Indiana University law professor and legal ethics expert, said everything the justices detailed Tuesday evening about ethics was essentially outlined in Chief Justice John Roberts’ annual year-end report from 2011, more than a decade ago. He wrote that testimony by previous holders of his office before Congress is “exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light or separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.” To his letter, however, Roberts attached a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” signed by all nine justices describing the ethical rules they follow about travel, gifts and outside income. “This statement aims to provide new clarity to the bar and to the public on how the Justices address certain recurring issues, and But ethics experts and other court observers said the statement that followed and ran just over two pages was nothing new, just “the rehashing of things we already knew and found insufficient,” said Gabe Roth of the watchdog group Fix the Court in a statement. Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said in her view the problem is that the justices “have not been subjected to basic accountability that just about everybody else in the federal government has to comply with.” What was striking to her about the statement, she said, was “a failure to grapple with the fundamental problem of lack of accountability.” The justices “seem to be utterly clueless about the problem they have.