Political Quotes

“it seems to me that the facts that led me to file this motion have been fully provided to the Senate. The code, the canons of ethics involving impartiality, the responsibility of judges under these circumstances have been discussed. I do want to point out that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for the State of Louisiana itself handed down a case in August 1986 in which the obligation of judges to disqualify themselves in cases in which they have a personal knowledge is one that the court takes very seriously. One of the head notes in that case is as follows: Under the disqualification statute, recusal is required even when a judge lacks actual knowledge of the facts, indicating his interest or bias in the case, if a reasonable person knowing all the circumstances would expect that the judge would have actual knowledge. It strikes me in reading that and then looking at the underlying decision of the court of appeals--incidentally, this case came out of the State of Louisiana, so it should have been within the knowledge of the judge as to what the law is, not just the canons of ethics, but what the law is regarding recusal and disqualification. But it strikes me that this clearly applies to this situation.”