Elaine Harris Spearman Commentary: Supreme Court needs a Code of Ethics

I have often spoken of federal courts as being the courts of last resort. The highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, is the ultimate arbiter on earth that hands down your earthly legal commandments. After the Supreme Court has spoken, you only go to God Almighty.

Surely you can grasp how powerful the Supreme Court is. Yet its justices are without a Code of Ethics.

The editorial board of the New York Times published a well-written opinion on April 16: “The highest court has the government's lowest ethical standards.” In that article, written by a “group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and long-standing values,” they opine that “an ethics office should be established at the Supreme Court.”

Some of the behavior that we are witnessing the justices engage in is giving all of us reason to give great pause toward expecting equal treatment and justice before our earthly arbiter.

Justice Clarence Thomas is not the only member of the court to “hang out” with the rich and maybe not so famous. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, according to the article, received a private tour of Israel in 2018 that was paid for by an Israeli billionaire, Morris Rahn, who had business before the court.

Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016 while staying in a luxurious Texas hunting lodge owned by John Poindexter, a wealthy businessman whose company had business before the court. The trip was never officially disclosed. These are just a few examples of the high-level hobnobbing that Supreme Court justices engage in.

You ask why people can’t have wealthy friends and enjoy their largesse. The answer is simple. The people can. They are not justices on the highest court in the land and the people's last hope, on earth, for fairness and justice.

The writers of the New York Times commentary said it best; “When the court’s members accept benefits from the nations moneyed elite, no matter their politics, it sends a signal that ordinary Americans without those resources are at a disadvantage."

There is a bill being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s courts subcommittee. The bill, currently with 16 Senate co-sponsors, would require the court to adopt a code of conduct with disclosure rules that are at least as stringent as the rules imposed on members of Congress.

The behavior of Justice Thomas is particularly galling as we urge young men and women to be careful of the company that they keep. All of the old adages apply: “People judge you by the company that you keep. ... Birds of a feather flock together.”

It was reported, again in the New York Times, that Thomas’ “close, personal friend,” Harlan Crow, is not just another billionaire. He maintains a sculpture garden on his Texas estate that has come to be known as the “garden of evil.” It contains statutes and busts of some of the most infamous 20th century dictators and authoritarians.

If this is not shocking and horrifying enough, the inside of his home reportedly contains a document signed by Columbus, a collection of Nazi artifacts and Hitler memorabilia. His supporters’ rationale does not hold water. The statutes and memorabilia do not honor those who died. When an atrocity is memorialized, there is a focus upon the victim. To do so otherwise is to, in effect, honor the perpetrators’ lives, their values and their causes.

In a recent televised interview, wealthy Crowe stated with discomfort that he doubted that he would be friends with Justice Thomas if he was not a Supreme Court Justice. So much for that “close personal friend” for many years.

There are lessons here that are continuously provided by adults. Who can tell justices of the Supreme Court that they should make better decisions about who they “hang out with?” That they should make better choices about accepting travel, gifts, lodging and who knows what else from those who offer?

A nation depends upon the justices’ ability to avoid even an appearance of impropriety. They all should have greater respect for where they are and for the great responsibility they have to all Americans.

This becomes crystal clear when you realize that a former disgraced president said, “The 2020 election allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

As Virgil warned in his poem “Aeneid,” referencing the Trojan Horse, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

Elaine Harris Spearman, Esq., a Gadsden native, is an attorney and is the retired legal advisor to the comptroller of the City of St. Louis. The opinions reflected are her own. 

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Elaine Harris Spearman looks at Supreme Court justices and ethics