Recuse Me Madam

Scott Hardie | June 27, 2023
Should the law compel recusal of a judge when they are assigned to a case involving the public official who appointed them to their position?

That reason for recusal is not on the bulleted list of reasons in the Wikipedia article about recusal. As a layperson, I'm somewhat surprised. It seems to me that the point of recusal is to avoid not just impartiality but the appearance of impartiality, and I don't see how a ruling favorable to the person who gave you the job wouldn't seem impartial. We can't reasonably stop a corrupt public official from appointing a judge who'd protect them from prosecution, but we can easily stop that judge from serving, so why don't we?

As you likely guessed if you're following the news story, Aileen Cannon being assigned to Trump's classified documents case is what inspired this question. Cannon might or might not be biased -- her unusual ruling in Trump's favor last year worries me far more than her initial appointment -- so I don't want to get hung up on the specifics of that one case. I just can't help but wonder about the legal principle in general.

Samir Mehta | June 27, 2023
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | July 4, 2023
Thanks for the perspective! That makes sense.

By "involving the public official," I was thinking merely that the official was a party in the suit at hand, as criminal defendant or civil litigant. I should have said "directly involving." I think that definition would be too limited to game, but I suppose people will try anything.

I recognize that this idea is very limited in scope. It's not intended to address many kinds of corruption, such as the recent bribery scandals at the Supreme Court, so it would rarely apply in reality. But it seems like such a no-brainer to me that I was surprised that it didn't already exist in law.

And yes, we do need to enlarge the judiciary, to avoid other ways of gaming the system. :-(