SCOTUS Is Terrible At 'Self-Regulation'

11 months ago 5

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by Brett Murphy and Kirsten Berg

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Series: Friends of the Court:SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation's highest court.

For decades, judges have relied on a select group to make sure the judiciary adheres to the highest ethical standards: themselves.

The Judicial Conference, a secretive, century-old council of federal judges led by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, oversees the ethics and financial disclosures for more than 1,700 federal judges, including the nine justices of the high court. Those financial disclosures, submitted yearly as a list of assets and gifts, are often the only window into whether judges with lifetime appointments have conflicts of interest as they rule on the country’s most consequential legal cases.

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