Vanguard Ruling Defended(Alito "most extensive" of "several explanations")

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Vanguard Ruling Defended
'Oversights,' but No Conflict, Alito Says
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; Page A12


Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. acknowledged yesterday "there were some oversights" that led him to rule on a lawsuit involving a mutual fund company in which he holds personal investments. But, as Democrats sought to cast doubt on his ethics, he asserted he did not break conflict-of-interest rules on when a federal judge should sit out a case.

Alito gave the most extensive of several explanations he has offered in recent weeks as to why he did not recuse himself from a 2002 case involving the investment firm Vanguard. A dozen years earlier, he had promised in writing to senators who confirmed him as an appellate judge that he would disqualify himself from "any cases involving the Vanguard companies."

"I just didn't focus on the issue of recusal" when the case arose, Alito told the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said the reason was that the plaintiff -- a woman who said she was entitled to money from a retirement fund belonging to her late husband -- was representing herself without a lawyer. In most cases, he said, the clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit asks judges beforehand whether they need to recuse themselves. But that checking is not done, he said, in such lawyerless cases.

"If I had to do it over again, there are things that I would have done differently," Alito said. Still, he said that ethics standards did not require him to refrain from voting in the case, adding that he would have done so only because he has tried as a judge "to go beyond the letter of the ethics rules and to avoid any situation where there might be an ethical question raised."

Democrats have used the Vanguard case as a wedge to challenge his fitness for the Supreme Court: whether he is a man of principle....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/10/AR2006011001533.html

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

1. I call BS on him. if there is no lawyer, the judge must take even more

precaution to making sure the process is done right by both sides, and is responsible for filling in the gaps of knowledge of the Pro Se Plaintiff. He is lying, plan and simple. :grr:

and furthermore, the 7.1 Statement filed by the defendants (vanguard) is all that would be needed for Alito to know he would have to recuse himself from this case! There is no need for the clerk to tell him!
:nuke:

[Wickerman]

2. gee, an oversight like that would make one think he isn't as brilliant

as we are led to believe. :think:

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

7. ya think!!!

:rofl:

what an asshat :grr:

[orwell]

3. It's Okay...

...when Cons have an ethical, moral, or legal problem it is a "technicality," a "lapse in judgment."

It is classic do as I say, not as I do.

As long as the public is willing to accept this blatant double standard, they will get the government they deserve, tyrannical and arbitrary.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Welcome to the "Conservative Revolution."

[wishlist]

4. He knew she wasn't protected by a lawyer so he could get away with it

Bet he would have been more careful and prudent about recusing himself if she had a lawyer who was more likely to know or find out about his Vanguard investments and insist on another judge. He was betting he could get away with not stepping down, thinking she wouldn't find out.

[wordpix]

6. good point, I totally agree with you. Without a lawyer, plaintiff wouldn'

t know Scalito had ties to Vanguard

[wordpix]

5. if "Vanguard" is name on legal documents, he should have had a clue. Dolt

[daleo]

8. He just overlooked it

Like groper, overlooking the need for a motorcycle license.