http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/125432173.html..snip..
The court in recent years has battled over when justices must remove themselves from cases to avoid conflicts or the appearance of impropriety. Tuesday's decision is the first one to definitively say a court majority cannot force a justice off a case. If a justice is accused of bias, only that justice gets to decide whether to stay on a case, the ruling says.
In Tuesday's decision, the same majority concluded justices cannot remove one another from cases. The dissenters wrote it was fundamentally unfair that Roggensack participated in the decision of whether she could remain on the case.
"Justice Roggensack fails to respect a bedrock principle of law that predates the American justice system by more than a century - 'no man is allowed to be a judge of his own cause,' " the dissent said.
The dissenters wrote that they believe the court has the power to remove a justice from a case, but did not say whether the court should have pushed Roggensack off the case entirely. Their opinion focused on the reasons they believed Roggensack should not have had a say in deciding whether she could remain on the case.
..end..
Roggensack is one of the four right-leaning Justices.