Hold on one second here. I may not be the most well-informed person, but I can sure see an entirely different set of rules being applied to Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders than were applied to Justice Antonin Scalia. Apparently when you are at the highest levels in the judicial system the same rules don’t apply.
Scalia went hunting with head honchos in Kansas before he was to be one of the judges in a case involving Kansas; and he did vote in their favor. Then there is the ever-popular hunting excursion Scalia took with Vice President Dick Cheney prior to hearing a case involving the vice president. There have been no official outcries about ethics violations with regard to Scalia.
The accusation against Sanders alleges that he “created the appearance of impropriety when he conversed with several inmates, including one with a case pending before the court” during a January 2003 visit to McNeil Island. Unlike Judge Sanders, who quickly recused himself from hearing a case involving someone he’d spoken with at McNeil, Scalia refused to recuse himself from the Kansas or Cheney cases. In my opinion, if Judge Sanders is due some sanctions then Scalia should be removed from the bench. He certainly created an enormous “appearance of impropriety” and thumbed his nose at all detractors.
Lesson here: the higher up you go in government, the less accountability there is.
Priscilla Benfield
Marysville
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