In 2010, Chief Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker issued a ruling that declared Proposition 8 (against gay marriage) an unconstitutional violation of gay Californians’ civil rights. After retiring in February of the next year, the judge revealed that he was in a 10-year-old relationship with a same-sex partner. The question is whether a reasonable belief that the judge would stand to benefit from the ruling means that there was a personal conflict of interest sufficient to have the judge’s ruling vacated. Amid the emotions swirling around issues such as gay marriage that involve the uneasy mix of personal matters and public scrutiny, an urgent need exists for ethicists and jurispruds to isolate the pernicious problems inherent in the conflict of interest phenomenon so we all can have faith that such issues are decided impartially in substance as well as appearance.
The full essay is at "Are Judges above Personal Conflicts of Interest?"
The full essay is at "Are Judges above Personal Conflicts of Interest?"
