Quote:If Thomas had no knowledge of Crow's connection to the case, then it cannot have been a conflict of interest. You can't unintentionally have a conflict of interest.

Agreed. Said differently... which you may or not agree with.... You can't have a conflict of interest if your interests aren't tied to knowledge of the participants. Conflict only occurrs when 'what you think is right' conflicts with your friendship so you vote differently.... otherwise a judge that personally believes that there is no individual right to posess a gun (and the opposite) would have a conflict of interests in every single gun case that comes before the court, regardless of the participants.

The potential for conflict arises out of a difference between what you believe is right, and what your 'interest' in the participants favors.


What I think 93 and/or Lad really means is the 'potential' for conflict... but as I've said... that potential arises out of deciding something OTHER than what you would have, absent knowedge of the participants.

As I've also said... because Gorsuch's situation involves someone who routinely argues before the court... and one might assert that he is 'friendly' with Gorsuch as a result of buying property from him... that it could impact the treatment he gets in court.... rulings that would go against their core legal beliefs.... and this is why I said 'if you don't see it for Gorsuch, then you CAN'T reasonably see it for Thomas regarding the home sale.

Quote:Sure. I think Thomas is completely in the clear if he didn't know about the connection. I think Crow has said that he wasn't aware of the case being reviewed by the SC either. I don't know how it works over there when is comes to sounding alarms about potential COI. You would think it would be a pretty robust system but maybe there are too many of these appeals to go that deep.

So court justices now have to pre-disclose every personal relationship they have with ANYONE?? Just in case they are ever associated with a lawsuit that comes before the court? How deep does this well go? The depth of such disclosure wouldn't simply be who all is involved in the case, but who all a judge might feel 'conflicted' by. I used to feel a greater duty to my kids nanny than I did some of my better friends. Judges better not ever have affairs, lol... and since this applies to COngress as well, I think we may have addressed the 'term limits' issue.

Quote:I would have thought though that given the relationship between the two and the largesse that Crow directs in Thomas' direction that one or both of them would take pains to make sure that Crow had no connection to a case reviewed/heard by the SC.

How do you know they didn't?

As I suggested, it could have been viewed as a conflict of interest if Crow had called Thomas and said... hey... there is a case coming before you that involves me... I am 100% convinced that had that happened, and the court denied the appeal as they did with no comments... that an even greater 'furor' (not by you, but by the media/left) would have occurred. Crow made a call and Thomas made sure that the court denied the appeal.

Had Thomas (and 3/or 4 other justices) independently decided to hear the case, which is what we want... no conflict in the decisions.... the potential conflict may have existed... and we have no idea what would have happened at that point. It seems unlikely that Thomas wouldn't ultimately recognize Trammel Crow as being his friend's father's company.... or that nobody would bring that to one side or the other's attention.

We never got to that point.