Hunting Where the Ducks Are

Nice to see that a couple of US Senators know how to go hunting where the ducks are. Via my brother's White House Briefing I lern that Leahy And Lieberman Query High Court On Ethics Of Scalia Vacation With Cheney. And well they should.

In a letter dated January 22, 2004, the two ranking committee members inquired about Supreme Court “canons, procedures and rules” on whether justices should recuse themselves from cases in which “their impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

“When a sitting judge, poised to hear a case involving a particular litigant, goes on vacation with that litigant, reasonable people will question whether that judge can be a fair and impartial adjudicator of that man’s case or his opponent’s claims,” the Senators wrote.

According to news reports, Scalia joined Cheney on a hunting trip for several days earlier this month just three weeks after the Supreme Court agreed to grant a petition of certiorari in a case involving the secrecy of the Vice President's energy task force and the formulation of Administration energy policy.