The Good News

Last week, President Joe Biden announced strong support for critical Supreme Court reforms. We at AFJ have long been calling for reform and we are thrilled to see President Biden join our calls for change.  

Getting down to specifics, the “fundamentals” are there and they’re strong:

Biden’s proposing a constitutional amendment — the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment” — to remedy SCOTUS’s disastrous immunity ruling and ensure no POTUS is above the law or beyond its reach when it comes to crimes committed in office. 

The White House is calling for 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. As quoted by Politico, AFJ interim president Keith Thirion heralded the reform as overdue, warning that the current uber-conservative uber-majority’s justices “are using their positions to turn back the clock on our rights and freedoms, ignore the threats to our planet, and claim even more power for themselves.” 

The administration is calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court, currently exempted from the ethics codes that apply to all other officeholders and the rest of the federal judiciary. The mechanism? Congress needs to establish “ethics rules that require Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have…conflicts of interest.” 

For more on how partisans have deviated from what should be a matter of logistics — ensuring there are enough judges to hear cases as dockets grow — to preserve an ideological edge in the judiciary, check out Senior Fellow Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza’s December write-up in Ms.

More Bad Deeds   

Historic and lasting concern around the Supreme Court’s misconduct under Chief Justice Roberts proves it’s past time for the other branches to rein in the rogue justices. NB: We’re just a month shy of three years since it became true that more than half of Americans disapprove of SCOTUS. Unless and until reforms are enacted, SCOTUS’s public approval ratings can only head in one direction: down.  

On Monday of this week, Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to conservative mega-donor Harlan Crow, already in the spotlight for the “gifts” to Justice Clarence Thomas we knew about, seeking further details around Hawaii and New Zealand trips in 2010. Despite disclosing (or amending disclosures to show) other luxury perks from Crow, as required by common sense and the Ethics in Government Act amidst growing scrutiny, Thomas didn’t fess up to the 2010 travel — it only came to light through Customs and Border Protection records.   

And it’s not just that Crow’s doing his best to buy a justice: He’s also writing off the costs of corrupting the Court at tax time. Take it from Wyden: “I am deeply concerned that Mr. Crow may have been showering a public official with extravagant gifts, then writing off those gifts to lower his tax bill.” 

Add to Thomas’s newest undisclosed private flights Justice Neil Gorsuch’s startling comments over last weekend on — where else? — Fox News, as he promoted his new book. Asked about Court reform, Gorsuch feebly attempted to take a position, portraying the justices as victims of politics rather than perpetrators. 

Senate Update: New Faces, New Places 

Last Wednesday, July 31, the Biden administration announced its 53rd slate of nominees — a group of five. We at AFJ are delighted that the administration continues to put forward new nominees — now we just need the Senate to prioritize confirming them! 

The newest set of nominees from the White House includes Judge Anthony J. Brindisi, a former member of Congress and New York state judge nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York; Tiffany R. Johnson, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia; and Keli M. Neary, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The final duo, James Graham Lake and Nicholas George Miranda, have been nominated to the District of Columbia Superior Court. In the weeks to come, we look forward to highlighting the continued demographic and professional diversification of the bench. 

Last week, the Senate confirmed Stacey Neumann, a former public defender and current professor of law; Meredith Vacca, a former state court judge and now first Asian-American woman named to the federal bench in western New York; and Joseph Saporito Jr., who served as a U.S. magistrate judge for nearly a decade after 30 years as a public defender. Their confirmations bring us to a total of 205 Biden judges confirmed. 

Upon its return, the Senate must prioritize pending nominees, of whom there are 33, including 6 circuit court nominees. That 33 includes several AFJ phenomimes: Karla Campbell (6th Circuit), Adeel Mangi (3rd Circuit), Sarah Russell (D. Conn.), Judge Mustafa Kasubhai (D. Or.), and Amir Ali (D.D.C.) are all awaiting Senate action. Nominated September 3, 2023, Judge Kasubhai has been waiting almost a year. Getting these nominees over the finish line can and must be a priority for the Senate in September.  

What’s Next? 

Alliance for Justice is proud to preview next Thursday’s Holding Court, a conversation with Yale and Georgetown law professor Stephen Bright and James Kwak about their new book: The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts. 

Register here or follow the link on Thursday to catch our 2 pm ET conversation with Bright and Kwak, leading voices in social justice and legal scholarship. They will expand on their thesis that the fear of doing justice has led to misguided policies and Supreme Court decisions that undermine equal justice under the law, moderated by Alliance for Justice’s Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza.  

More on TFTMJ? Bright and Kwak hold that the root cause of inequities inflicted by the criminal justice system, which disproportionately targets marginalized communities, is the fear of “too much justice.” This fear, fueled by the system’s obsession with retribution, has driven the erosion of due process protections, the criminalization of poverty and mental illness, and the perpetuation of racial and socioeconomic disparities. 

The authors will expand on the influence of concerns about "judicial activism" and overreach on the Supreme Court in decisions curtailing our rights. In their words, “These decisions demonstrate how the fear of ‘too much justice’ can lead to a narrowing of protections and the corrosion of democratic principles, with long-term consequences for the integrity of American democracy.” 

See you there: https://streamyard.com/watch/TUSNXrvemWUU. 

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