Chief Justice John Roberts listens as President Biden speaks at a joint session of Congress on April 28.
Photos Melina Mara / Pool / Getty
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Photos Melina Mara / Pool / Getty
Chief Justice John Roberts listens as President Biden speaks at a joint session of Congress on April 28.
Photos Melina Mara / Pool / Getty
U.S. courts need to do more to ensure compliance with codes of ethics — including rules that prevent a judge from presiding over cases in which he or she has a financial interest, Chief Justice John Roberts said. in a year-end report to the federal judiciary.
Roberts responded, in part, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal shows that between 2010 and 2018, 131 federal judges ruled in cases involving companies in which they or their families own stock.
Roberts said that while those numbers represent “less than three percent of one percent of the 2.5 million civil cases filed in district courts” during that period, the federal judiciary must take the matter seriously.
“We are obligated to strive for 100% compliance because public trust is essential, not incidental, to our function,” he wrote.
Roberts notes that Magazine did not report any cases where judges acted in a way that was financially beneficial to themselves. The Chief Justice recommended increasing training and updating technology systems to improve compliance with ethics policies.
The year-end report comes at a time of intense scrutiny by the Supreme Court and the entire federal judiciary.
A record 53% of Americans disapprove about how the Supreme Court is doing its job, according to a September Gallup poll. And 57% of Americans believe the Supreme Court is either “too liberal” or “too conservative.”
Public opinion of the court has long been a central concern for Roberts as the nation’s top judicial official.
In 2018, after a federal judge issued a ruling that outraged then-President Donald Trump, Trump responded on Twitter, saying “it’s not the law” and that “this is the judge of Obama.”
Roberts responded to the president in a statement, writing that the United States does not have “Judge Obama or Judge Trump, Judge Bush or Judge Clinton. What we do have is an extraordinary group of judges dedicated to doing it all. do your best to exercise equal rights with those people. appear before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be grateful for.”
Time will tell how many Americans continue to agree with Roberts’ characterization of the courts. This term, the Supreme Court’s conservative 6-3 majority – of which Roberts is a member – has tackled a number of highly divisive, partisan issues including access to abortion, rights gun use and religious freedom cases.
How the Supreme Court chooses to rule in highly watched cases, and the extent to which those rulings are widely applied, will likely have a significant impact on the court’s reputation in the coming year.
