Page 5 - January February 24 Report

Is it Enough?
On November 13, 2023, the United States Supreme Court announced that it was adopting a Code of Conduct “to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court.”1 For the first time in its history, the Court will be formally subject to a code of ethics. In order to understand the impetus for the issuance of a Code of Conduct by the Supreme Court, one cannot avoid the landscape out of which these new ethical rules emerged. In this situation, context
By Professor Jack Harrison
to be controlled and lobbied. The roots of this somewhat cynical view of the Supreme Court can perhaps be found in the unprec- edented blocking of President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland and the speed with which the Senate moved to confirm Amy Coney Barrett just days before the 2020 election. Or perhaps the roots go back even further to the controversial fights over the nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Whatever the source, the timing of this drop in public trust in the Supreme
is everything.
For a number of years, the
“Given these potential conflicts of interest and the criticism surrounding them, where were the justices to turn for guidance as to the proper ethical path?”
Court seems to correspond with a rapid fundamental shift in the perceived ideological makeup of the Court, resulting from the appoint- ment of Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett. The shift in the composition of the Court was quickly followed by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, eliminating constitutional protec- tions for the reproductive rights of women that had existed for half a
Gallup organization has been
tracking the public’s trust in the
judicial branch of the federal
government embodied by the
Supreme Court. Earlier in the year,
Gallup reported that the public’s
overall opinion of the Supreme
Court was a 40% approval rating.
This rating was equal to the Court’s
record-low approval rating recorded in September 2021, which ticked up to 43% in July 2022 before dropping back to 40%.2 Addi- tionally, a poll released in September, 2023 found that only 49% of Americans have trust or confidence in the federal courts as a whole, following a 47% trust level a year ago.3 Before 2022, based on Gallup’s poll numbers, trust in the judicial branch averaged 68%.4
century. On the heels of the Court’s decision in Dobbs, the Court then moved to lessen the protections for voting rights provided by the Voting Rights Act and to eliminate the consideration of racial diversity in admissions in higher education. None of these deci- sions were incremental in nature, seemingly leading to a public perception of the Court as moving aggressively in a conserva- tive direction.
Further, revelations regarding financial dealings and apparent conflicts of interest raised questions about the ethical conduct of some of the justices.5 For example, (1) a report emerged that
What explains this shift in the level of trust? In part, it is likely a product of our greatly polarized times, wherein the Court is seen as simply another partisan political branch of the government
THE REPORT | January/February 2024 | CincyBar.org 5