Morrison addresses judical recusals and the Supreme Court

The ethical quandary of when a judge should step aside and recuse himself from a case is a hot topic in the legal world. Monday, a lecture at Ole Miss addressed the issue. Cari Gervin has more.

Alan Morrison has national recognition in the legal community. But the rest of the country knows him as the lawyer who asked Supreme Court Justice Scalia to recuse himself from a case in 2004 after he took a hunting trip with then-Vice-President Cheney.

Speaking in front a group of fifty students at University of Mississippi’s law school yesterday, Morrison told the story of that unsuccessful recusal request. He also discussed a case the Supreme Court heard just last week – whether an elected West Virginia judge should have recused himself when hearing a case involving a coal company that was a large campaign donor.

“I think people want to that know judges are fair. They don’t want to see judges getting large campaign contributions and then sitting on cases in which the contributors are interested either as lawyers or parties, and unfortunately with judicial elections, that’s what’s happening.”

Morrison said that he doubted the Supreme Court would say there is specific monetary limit at which point a judge should step aside.

“And my sense is that once the court says that never – meaning that no amount that you give is ever basis for recusal – the lower courts will be able to figure out kind of which cases they should sit on and which ones they shouldn’t.”

Morrison is the co-founder of the Public Citizen Litigation Group and has taught at Stanford, Harvard and American Universities. For MPB News, I’m Cari Gervin in Oxford.