If there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this, I can’t think of one.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts since joining the high court, including $1,200 worth of tires, valuable historical items and a $5,000 personal check to help pay a relative’s education expenses.
The gifts also included a Bible once owned by the 19th century author and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, which Thomas valued at $19,000, and a bust of President Lincoln valued at $15,000.
He also took a free trip aboard a private jet to the exclusive Bohemian Grove club in Northern California — arranged by a wealthy Texas real estate investor who helped run an advocacy group that filed briefs with the Supreme Court.
Perhaps you’re thinking that this is relatively common. Maybe all Supreme Court justices take advantage of loose ethics rules and reward themselves by taking generous gifts from others. Unfortunately for Thomas and his defenders, that’s not the case.
[From 1998 through 2003], Thomas accepted $42,200 in gifts, making him the top recipient.
Next in that period was Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who accepted $5,825 in gifts, mostly small crystal figurines and other items…. Since joining the court, Thomas reported accepting gifts valued at $47,745. He also reported other gifts without citing a dollar value, ranging from “small gifts and flowers” to free plane trips and accommodations from friends.
This may be legal, but it looks really bad.
Thomas cannot legally accept “anything of value” from those with official business before the court. If you don’t have business before it, you can lavish Supreme Court justices with gifts to your heart’s content. For some reason, Thomas seems to be accepting far more than all of his colleagues combined.
It’s a system facing pressure to reform.
[I]n October, an American Bar Assn. panel called for tightening the rules to forbid judges from taking expensive gifts, free tickets and other valuable items, regardless of who is the donor.
“Why would someone do that — give a gift to Clarence Thomas? Unless they are family members or really close friends, the only reason to give gifts is to influence the judge,” said Mark I. Harrison, a Phoenix lawyer who heads the ABA’s Commission on the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. “And we think it is not helpful to have judges accepting gifts for no apparent reason.”
When it comes to judges, particularly Supreme Court justices, jurists have a responsibility to meet unusually high ethical standards. As an LAT editorial noted yesterday, “Appearances matter.”
In this case, it appears that Clarence Thomas has an ethics problem.