ROTUNDA: Kagan must recuse from Obamacare case - Washington Times

Dear rat,

I think that Kagan had promoted herself as somone who just hung around the White House with Clinton and with Obama and really had no personal interaction on these matters.

Her job description and these emails are evidence she did have personal intervention and bias, she would not put something in writing but she was working on it?

She laughed and joked through congressional questions, that does not change she had a job to do or why was she in the White House in the first place? She is no air head, no defense she did not know it....

The definitions and regs for "recusal" from Wikipedia

Dear Robert,

Often justices or judges will recuse themselves sua sponte (on their own motion), recognizing that facts leading to their disqualification are present. However, where such facts exist, a party to the case may suggest recusal. Generally, each judge is the arbiter of a motion for the judge's recusal, which is addressed to the judge's conscience and discretion. However, where lower courts are concerned, an erroneous refusal to recuse in a clear case can be reviewed on appeal or, under extreme circumstances, by a petition for a writ of prohibition.

Article in part and link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_disqualification#Recusal_in_the_United_States

In the United States, the term "recusal" is used most often with respect to court proceedings. Two sections of Title 28 of the United States Code (the Judicial Code) provide standards for judicial disqualification or recusal. Section 455, captioned "Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge," provides that a federal judge "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The same section also provides that a judge is disqualified "where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding"; when the judge has previously served as a lawyer or witness concerning the same case or has expressed an opinion concerning its outcome; or when the judge or a member of his or her immediate family has a financial interest in the outcome of the proceeding.

28 U.S.C. sec. 144, captioned "Bias or prejudice of judge," provides that under circumstances, when a party to a case in a United States District Court files a "timely and sufficient Motion that the judge before whom the matter is pending has a personal bias or prejudice either against him or in favor of an adverse party," the case shall be transferred to another judge.

The general rule is that to warrant recusal, a judge's expression of an opinion about the merits of a case or familiarity with the facts or the parties must have originated in a source outside the case itself. This is referred to in the United States as the "extra-judicial source rule" and was recognized as a general presumption, although not an invariable one, in the 1994 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Liteky v. United States.

Dear Robert,

You can see by my references and links, Kagan SHOULD recuse herself in the Obamacare case.

In the United States, the term "recusal" is used most often with respect to court proceedings. Two sections of Title 28 of the United States Code (the Judicial Code) provide standards for judicial disqualification or recusal. Section 455, captioned "Disqualification of justice, judge, or magistrate judge," provides that a federal judge "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The same section also provides that a judge is disqualified "where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding"; when the judge has previously served as a lawyer or witness concerning the same case or has expressed an opinion concerning its outcome; or when the judge or a member of his or her immediate family has a financial interest in the outcome of the proceeding.

The Congress had already spoke to her of her personal cooperation in Obamacare.

Dear life,

Soooo, if someone's wife thinks a certain way the husband is held accountable?

Wow, that would not stand up in court.

There are many men and women who are married who have different political opinions.

That would not hold up in court, the law states the "judge" not maybe if his wife had some personal activity.

Dear life,

Well, with your reasoning, Atty Gen Holder who had volunteered or Pro Bono defense for known Terrorists in his history?

Now, Holder is our Atty Gen or prosecutor and Justice for US?

Atty Gen Eric Holder defense of Terrorists + the Pro Bono work of his firm,they are all left/liberal causes?

Articles in part and link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covington_%26_Burling

Partner Eric Holder in 2007 defended Chiquita International Brands against lawsuits brought by relatives of people slain by terrorists and paramilitia belonging to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which Chiquita paid for protection.^[11][12] Holder had previously helped Chiquita negotiate a felony plea bargain, accepted by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, in a criminal prosecution by the federal government for one count of supporting a designated terrorist organization. The plea involved a fine of $25 million USD, also entailing 5 years probation. Chiquita became the first major U.S. corporation to be convicted of financing terrorism. After the settlement, U.S. Assistant Attorney Jonathan Malis said the $1.7 million in payments "fueled violence" and "paid for weapons and ammunition to kill innocent people." Holder stressed that Chiquita had asked the Department of Justice in 2003 if the payments should be stopped.^[13]

The firm’s recent pro bono matters include:

• Preparing an amicus brief on behalf of a number of social scientists in the Cook v. Rumsfeld case challenging the military’s don't ask, don't tell policy

• Filing an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in support of the Planned Parenthood challenge of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

• Supporting the District of Columbia in District of Columbia v. Heller which argues that the District's ban on the possession of handguns and its storage provisions for other firearms in the home is not implicated by the Second Amendment^[21]

• Primary pro bono counsel for TeachAIDS, a nonprofit which has developed a new method for global HIV/AIDS prevention education

[edit] Representation of Guantanamo Bay inmates

Attorneys at Covington & Burling have been Guantanamo Bay attorneys for Ahmed al-Ghailani^[22] fifteen Yemenis, one Pakistani, and one Algerian being held at Guantanamo Bay. The firm obtained favorable rulings that detainees have rights under the Fifth Amendment and the Geneva Conventions.^[23] The court ruled in March 2005 that the government could not transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to foreign custody without first giving the prisoners a chance to challenge the move in court.

According to The American Lawyer's annual pro bono survey, Covington lawyers spent 3,022 hours on Guantánamo litigation in 2007, "the firm's largest pro bono project that year". Lawyers from the firm who have become administration officials have been advised by ethics officials to recuse themselves in matters involving detainees represented by their former firms, but not from policy issues where they were not personally and substantially involved. Lanny Breuer is one of those who has had to recuse on from some matters since leaving the firm for a government position. Covington also co-authored one of three petitioners' briefs filed in Boumediene v. Bush, "and was responsible for several detainee victories" in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. "At least one high-ranking appointee played a key role in advancing detainees' rights," but they did not participate in litigation over the Guantanamo Bay prison itself.^[24]