Scalia Speech Under Scrutiny
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke before an anti-gay rights group while the court was considering a major gay rights case last year, a newspaper reported.
It is the third instance where critics say Scalia's actions created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The Los Angeles Times reports Scalia, generally regarded as the court's most conservative member, spoke before Philadelphia's Urban Family Council on May 20, two months after hearing arguments in a case concerning Texas' anti-sodomy statute.
When the high court overturned that Texas law a month later, Scalia dissented forcefully — even taking the rare step of reading his dissent from the bench.
Scalia had no comment for the Times story. Some legal scholars said Scalia's appearance raised no ethical concerns. For one thing, Scalia received no money for his address, refusing even reimbursement for his parking. With federal judicial rules — which the Supreme Court does not have to follow but uses as guidelines — prohibiting judges from participating in fundraising, Scalia insisted the dinner not make a profit. Scalia did not mention gay rights in his speech, and the Council was not a party to the case before the Court last year.
"I don't see it as a problem," Northwestern University law professor Steven Lubet told the newspaper. "Lots of organizations are engaged in litigation — hospitals, universities, the American Bar Association — and it's too restrictive to say judges should not speak to those groups."
But others told the Times that Scalia's speech went against judicial guidelines that instruct judges to avoid actions that "would create in reasonable minds … a perception that the judge's ability to carry out judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality and competence is impaired."
The Urban Family Council is challenging a Philadelphia city statute granting rights to gay domestic partners. That case could possibly end up in front of the Supreme Court.
The dinner was honoring Anthony Bevilaqua, the anti-gay bishop of Philadelphia.
"It's nice to be able to say you have a friend like Justice Scalia," Council founder and leader William Devlin.
The Times has previously reported that Scalia flew on Vice President Dick Cheney's plane to go duck hunting with Cheney after the court accepted a case concerning Cheney's refusal to make public records from his energy task force.
"It did not involve a lawsuit against Dick Cheney as a private individual," Scalia said when asked about the trip last month. "This was a government issue. It's acceptable practice to socialize with executive branch officials when there are not personal claims against them. That's all I'm going to say for now. Quack, quack."
Cheney also was a speaker at the University of Kansas law school was its dean was at the head of two cases before the high court.
Scalia was the subject of conflict of interest allegations during the 2000 recount dispute, when he had one son at the law firm that handled the Bush campaign's arguments to the Supreme Court, and another son in the firm that led the Republican court battle in Florida.
In his dissent to the sodomy ruling, Scalia said the court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" and "has taken sides in the culture war."
Scalia, who turns 68 on Thursday, was appointed by President Reagan in 1986.