Can Justice O'Connor Accept That Free Facelift?

Article III Groupie loves all of you, her readers and correspondents. When you send her fantastic emails that she can just reprint in their entirety in her blog, you make her job as a blogger so easy. You're not just readers of this blog; you are effectively a rotating cast of guest bloggers, who help out A3G when she doesn't have enough time to do her own writing.

On that note, here's the latest and greatest missive that A3G will just copy from her email account and paste into her blog:

Hi A3G. I was just writing to share you with an eyewitness account of the judicial sightation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in Chicago [last] weekend. My father is a plastic surgeon, and my parents attended the conference, where they had the privilege and the pleasure of hearing Justice O'Connor's address. As a loyal UTR correspondent, I called up my parents and debriefed them fully about the event. [A3G previously blogged about SOC's speech here.]

My mother said that everyone greatly enjoyed Justice O'Connor's remarks, which she described as very interesting and surprisingly humorous. My mom, herself a world-class gossip, especially enjoyed SOC's salacious review of Justice [William O.] Douglas's succession of increasingly younger wives.

Justice O'Connor's attire, however, was less warmly received than her speech. My mother -- who is something of a fashion plate, as one might expect from the wife of a plastic surgeon -- pronounced SOC's outfit "hideous." My father quipped that the Justice's blue pantsuit "looked like pajamas," which caused my mother to opine that Justice O'Connor "would have been better off just wearing her black robe." My father then observed: "For the amount that they paid her, she should have gone out and bought a Chanel!"

What my father was referring to is the ASPS's history of paying six-figure speaking fees to the keynote speakers at its annual meeting. (This may constitute the answer to your other reader's question concerning why SOC was addressing a group of plastic surgeons.) Because the ASPS pays such generous honoraria, in years past they have snagged such marquee names as Secretary of State Colin Powell and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf to serve as their keynoters. Of course, for the well-heeled plastic surgeons, paying out this kind of money is "no skin off their noses"; rather, it's skin off their patients' noses!

Excellent! As you all know, A3G deeply appreciates commentary on federal judicial fashion, as well as gossip about how much Supreme Court justices get paid. So she was just loving this message. But this reader also had a more substantive query:

A question for you and any judicial ethics experts in your readership, A3G: Would Justice O'Connor have been permitted to accept a six-figure speaking fee or honorarium from the ASPS? And would the answer change if Justice O'Connor took in-kind payment from them, in the form of a facelift or eyelid lift? (I've never seen her in person, but I'm guessing that the well-aerobicized SOC requires no liposuction.)

I seem to recall that the outside income of Supreme Court justices, such as the income they earn for teaching at those cushy summer programs in Europe, is subject to a cap well below the $100,000 mark. I also know that when a justice speaks at a law school or before a group like the Federalist Society, she gets her expenses reimbursed, but doesn't usually collect a speaker's fee.

So at first I was thinking that Justice O'Connor would not be able to accept a gigantic speaker's fee from the ASPS. But I remember reading a few years ago that she received some award in Philadelphia that carried with it a $100,000 honorarium. So maybe she could have accepted such a speaker's fee? [This reader is presumably thinking of the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, which SOC won in 2003.]

If it turns out that justices are not allowed to take honoraria, why are they allowed to accept money in the form of book advances and royalties? If Justice O'Connor can't accept $100,000 in cash -- or the equivalent value in plastic surgery -- from the ASPS, why should Justice Thomas be allowed to accept a $1.5 million book advance? Structurally the two transactions appear indistinguishable: both are just accepting money in exchange for expressing their extra-judicial thoughts and insights.

Can you shed any light on all of this?

A3G started to research this issue, but then she ran out of time. So she will instead turn this inquiry over to her readership, which includes a number of judicial ethics scholars. If you can enlighten this reader (and A3G), please add a comment to this post. (You can also email A3G, but posting a comment will save her the trouble of editing and reprinting your message in her blog -- which might take a while, given her huge email backlog.) As always, thanks in advance for your input!

Comments

[Nominate Beyonce!]

I don't know if it succeeded, but wasn't there an effort a few years ago to repeal some of these rules about judges' outside income?

I think the limitation on outside income is a percentage of their salary from the Court. But maybe certain forms of income are exempt from the cap, which might explain the CT book deal.

[dave s]

facelift??! she needs no facelift!

http://hubris.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/sandra2_3.png