Courts must take conflicts of interest more seriously ...Middle East

High standards should be a requirement in government. Unfortunately, they are not.

Many elected officials are people you wouldn’t trust to water your lawn if you had to go out of town for a week, let alone trust with anything truly important. Such is the nature of the electoral process.

But judges are different — or, at least, they should be. Appointing people to powerful lifetime jobs is different. It should come with the highest possible standards. Unfortunately, this is not how things appear to be.

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Imagine having a lifetime job, guaranteed. First off, the sense of relief must be exhilarating knowing there is almost nothing short of an impeachment that can affect your income professionally. With that relief comes complacency and, in many cases, arrogance. It’s human nature to let the lack of consequences change one's attitude. 

We, the people, cannot let judges who are immune from consequences preside over the justice system with no standards of conduct or for recusal in cases of conflicts of interest. A functioning society needs to have faith in its justice system.

We all remember the conflicts of interest of New York Judge Juan Merchan, whose daughter works for an organization that was raising money off the Trump trial over which he was presiding. Were there no judges available to hear that case who had not contributed to Democratic candidates and causes, or who had immediate family members benefiting financially from the trial? 

Of course there were, but the choice of whether or not those obvious conflicts rose to the level of recusal was left exclusively up to Merchan himself. He did not recuse. 

D.C. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg, currently blocking the deportation of Venezuelan illegal immigrant gang members under the Alien Enemies Act, has a daughter working for a group that actively works on behalf of illegal immigrants, including gang members — the very definition of a conflict or at least the appearance thereof.

As the New York Post reported, “Katharine Boasberg, the daughter of the federal judge who halted the Trump administration from using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act…conducts ‘capacity building work in public defender offices across the nation’ for the nonprofit group Partners in Justice. Partners in Justice removed Boasberg’s biography page from its website after her father was assigned to the Alien Enemies Act case.”

So do you think they removed her from their website because there wasn’t the appearance of a conflict of interest?

And look, it’s not just liberal judges. It’s a bipartisan issue. 

One of the judges being speculated about as a possible Supreme Court nominee for President Trump, should a vacancy occur, is 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho, who appears to have a stellar judicial record. He also has a history as a lawyer.

As a lawyer, Ho was partner at a firm that represented Johnson and Johnson, among other pharmaceutical companies — something not uncommon in large firms. But he is now presiding over a case filed by Johnson & Johnson, which is fighting to change a drug pricing program in the Department of Health and Human Services to its advantage, as companies are wont to do. 

The fact that Ho used to be partner at a firm where Johnson & Johnson was a client isn’t necessarily a conflict of interest, since he’s no longer at the firm. But the appearance shows up clearly when you learn that Ho’s wife, Allyson, is a partner there. Even if she isn’t working on this case herself, she is a partner and therefore benefits financially from the company's continued business — and therefore the judge benefits as well.

If a job involving the daughter of a judge presiding over a case presents the appearance of a conflict, the job of a judge's wife certainly does. And a recusal would also go a long way toward disarming a line of attack Democrats will make if Ho is nominated to the high court.

They all should recuse themselves, honestly. But beyond that, there should be clear standards to determine when a judge should be required to recuse. These people may all be among the most honest people on the planet, but this is as much about appearances as it is about reality.

There’s always another judge who can take a case who doesn’t have even the appearance of a conflict through his children, spouse or personal history. Why chance it?

Congress created every federal court in the country except for the Supreme Court itself. It can set standards for conflicts in law if the courts won’t police themselves.

State courts would likely follow suit, especially with a buy-in from their respective bar associations. 

This isn’t hard, nor is it a partisan question. All it takes is a commitment to ensure that blindfolded Lady Justice holding those balanced scales isn’t peeking, no matter which way someone thinks she may be looking.

Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.). 

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