Kagan attempts to clean up SCOTUS' reputation

Justice Elena Kagan proposed Chief Justice John Roberts appoint a panel of judges to enforce the US Supreme Court’s code of conduct.

  Bloomberg

That could be considered closing the barn door after the horse has gone. It could also be considered appointing the fox to guard the hen house.

While speaking Thursday at a judicial conference in Sacramento, California, Kagan said she trusts Roberts and if he creates “some sort of committee of highly respected judges with a great deal of experience and a reputation for fairness,” that seems like a good solution.

I respectuflly dissent.

During a discussion with lawyer Roger Townsend and US Bankruptcy Judge Madeleine Wanslee, Kagan also criticized her colleagues for writing multiple opinions in a single case, saying it complicates matters for lower courts.

[...]

While there are times when separate writings make sense, Kagan said justices shouldn’t be writing separately just because they would have written the majority decision differently. The court should have a “higher threshold” than that, she said.

Kagan cited the court’s fractured decision in the United States v. Rahimi gun case. The court upheld a federal law that bans people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing a gun in a 8-1 decision in which seven of the nine justices wrote their own opinions despite there being only one dissent.

Kagan suggested that Chief Justice John Roberts could establish a committee of lower-court judges to tackle complaints against the justices.

  Politico

Kavanaugh had 11 (I think that's the right number) ethics complaints filed against him when he was appointed to the Supreme Court bench, which made them all go away. Do you think the SCOTUS panel will be any more efficient than whoever was supposed to be covering Kavanaugh complaints?

“It would provide a sort of safe harbor. … Sometimes people accuse us of misconduct where we haven’t engaged in misconduct. And, so, I think both in terms of enforcing the rules against people who have violated them, but also in protecting people who haven’t violated them, I think a system like that would make sense,” she said.

Sure. Whatever.

“Often people use separate opinions to pre-decide issues that aren’t properly before the court and that may come before the court in a year or two and try to give signals as to how lower courts should decide that, which I don’t think is right.”

You think?

“I don’t know how lower courts are supposed to deal with it really. Mostly, I think they should deal with it by ignoring it, basically,” she said.

We're at the point where one Supreme Court justice thinks Supreme Court justice's opinions should be ignored.

Reform is desperately needed. Pronto.