The U.S. Supreme Court is the pinnacle of the American judicial system, so one might assume that justices on the highest court in the land would be held to the highest possible ethical standards. In fact, they are exempt from a code of conduct that applies to other federal judges, though Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has said that they consult that code in assessing their ethical obligations.
That’s not good enough at a time when the court is facing a crisis of public confidence, with trust falling to a 50-year low even before justices overturned Roe vs. Wade in June. If the justices don’t act expeditiously on their own to establish a robust ethics code and meaningful enforcement measures, Congress will have good reason to step in.
Among other provisions, the Code of Conduct for United States Judges promulgated by the U.S. Judicial Conference says that a judge “should avoid Impropriety and the appearance of Impropriety in all activities.” But this code doesn’t formally apply to Supreme Court justices.
