Your reasoning was poor, though, as I showed.
Before you rest your case, maybe you'll respond just a LITTLE to my reasoning in the post you decline to respond to?
<<You seem to talk about "substantial financial interest" (and I believe
you again irrelevantly raised household members), but the statute
section I'm proposing as relevant says that if your great grandpa's
wife has "an interest that could be substantially affected" by the
outcome of the proceeding... etc.
You know what happens if that is the case? If, for example, it were
felt that not your son, even, but your great grandpa's wife had an
"interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the
proceeding"?
You MUST be recused. Because it's subsection b. Disclosure isn't
enough.
So if your great grandpa's wife has an interest that could be
substantially affected you are OUT, no waivers, no exceptions, I
believe.
But now let's say your son (not grandpa's wife) is the law (business)
partner of the guy who's arguing the case for the defendant and
you're going to judge this guy's argument.
Doesn't this situation, in your opinion rise to subsection b, mandatory
recusal?
No? Well, everybody's different, n'est-ce pas?
But let's go with that, since you think it's an entirely benign
circumstance and wouldn't mind being in the docket for murder and
judged and sentenced by a judge whose son was the law partner of
the prosecutor in the biggest case their law firm would ever see.
Since you feel that way, let's move on to consider this scenario:
Daddy thinking to himself, "Hmmmm, that's my son's business partner,
since the two are partners in the same law firm... hmmmm... this is the
biggest case their firm will ever handle... hmmmm... wow, wouldn't it
be great if my dear Johnny's firm won this gold ring case?...
hmmmm....
Whoa! -- Now that I think of it...
I'd better disclose this connection, because of subsection a,
(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify
himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be
questioned."
Seems right-thinking to me.
Doesn't say financial. Doesn't say substantial. Doesn't say proved.
Doesn't say household. Doesn't say grandpa. Doesn't say
unspeculative.
Doesn't say recusal.
Says disclosure.
you know, Rambi's husband said words to the effect that the law is
what you can convince people it is. Your brief feels, to me, like
transparent legal obfuscation of simple, clear, printed ideas, not like
you read the statute and applied an ethical common sense-- but hey,
maybe it could convince a jury. That's what lawyers are for. I'd get a
better one than you, though, if I were defending Scalia's not
disclosing! (Not an insult, I know that neither of us are lawyers,
Neocon, and are both dealing with texts of a sort we aren't used to.)>> |
