Member-only story
Some Advice to the U.S. Supreme Court from a Guy Who Has Made a Lot of Bad Decisions
Lately, it has come to light that members of the U.S. Supreme Court have made some bad decisions. I don’t mean bad decisions about cases they hear. I mean bad decisions in their personal lives.
I’m a retired lawyer. Having never been on the bench, I have no experience deciding appellate cases, but I have decades of experience making bad decisions in my personal life — so much experience that now when an opportunity for bad decision making arises, I am likely to say to myself, “No way. I’m not doing that again.” My extensive catalogue of bad decision making qualifies me to offer a little advice to the justices.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and maybe others, have been receiving gifts, vacations, and other sweet booty from billionaire mega-donors to political causes. Thomas has been on the bench for thirty-two years. Alito has been there for sixteen years. Both of them have recently defended accepting (and not reporting) the booty by invoking legal theories that I am sure they sincerely believe, but leave those of us who aren’t Supreme Court Justices shaking our heads in disbelief at how naïve these really smart guys can be.
It looks like these justices have been breathing the rarified air of the Supreme Court so long that they have forgotten…
