So Byron is raising concern here re a judge making a $35 political donation - yet has no issues w/ an ethically compromised jurist setting on the highest Court of the land after taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from a right-wing (what appears to be a) nazi fanboy.
Well, the two courts have vastly different roles in the US legal system, with far different protections in place to make sure their members are doing their jobs correctly.
It's apples and oranges.
The judge overseeing trial proceedings has huge amounts of power to unilaterally influence how they proceed, able to put his finger on scales, and basically having the power over someone's life through the course of the argument.
A Supreme Court justice is only one of nine serving a (mostly) appellate role, with checks on his power from both inside and outside the Court.
Does that help?
@volkris @murshedz
This framing suggests a power dynamic that is precisely the opposite of how things work.
In NYS courts, trial judges are subject to a variety of oversight mechanisms, including the Commission on Judicial Conduct. If a judge oversteps her bounds, she is subject to scrutiny by that body and discipline up to and including removal.
If a SCOTUS justice oversteps his bounds, he is subject to no oversight other than the presently-toothless impeachment process.
You misunderstand. What I said is entirely compatible with your "opposite" view of how things work.
We're talking about the same way of working, while you're just looking at what might happen in reaction to the overstepping.
The overstepping is itself the problem. It's true that there might be discipline as a result, but that doesn't change that the overstepping has happened.
A SCOTUS justice cannot have the same impact in such a trial because SCOTUS justices do not sit for such trials in the first place.
