What are the Supreme Court’s Rules on Recusal?
WASHINGTON – Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., Thursday asked Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist about issues arising from a hunting trip Justice Antonin Scalia took with Vice President Dick Cheney shortly after the high court agreed to hear a case in which Cheney is the principal party. In a letter dated January 22, 2004, the two ranking committee members inquired about Supreme Court “canons, procedures and rules” on whether justices should recuse themselves from cases in which “their impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” “When a sitting judge, poised to hear a case involving a particular litigant, goes on vacation with that litigant, reasonable people will question whether that judge can be a fair and impartial adjudicator of that man’s case or his opponent’s claims,” the Senators wrote. According to news reports, Scalia joined Cheney on a hunting trip for several days
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