American Politics Journal

Running Like Scared Rabbits!
Nine Months After Bush v. Gore, The Scalia Court Suddenly Discovers the Art of... Recusal!
by Tamara Baker

Wednesday, August 15, 2001 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- This is news you may have seen on TV, but only in passing, and without its full import spelled out to the viewers.

It seems that a capital case in Texas has ties to THREE members of the US Scalia Court:

Napoleon Beazley, who is now 25 but was 17 when he killed a Tyler, Texas, oil man in 1994, was set to receive a lethal injection on Wednesday at a state prison in Huntsville, Texas, 75 miles north of Houston.

Why is this a big deal? Because:

Three of the high court's justices, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and David Souter, recused themselves from the case because of personal ties with the son of John Luttig, Beazley's murder victim. His son is J. Michael Luttig, a well-connected federal appeals court judge in Virginia...

Interesting!

With the recusal of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Souter, the remaining Justices split 3-3 on the stay, effectively killing it and Mr. Beazley.

But wait, there's more:

Attorneys argued that [Beazley's] clean record and age should have prevented him from getting the death penalty. They charged that prosecutors went after him full bore because of the prominence of Luttig's son.

Prosecutors denied that accusation and also claims by two accomplices to the crime who said they lied in testimony against Beazley in a deal to avoid the death penalty.

Now, this is all very interesting indeed.

But one thing these stories don't mention is that, nine months ago, in *Bush v. Gore*, Scalia and Thomas had personal conflicts of interest far, far greater than the one tenuous one that caused them to run like scared rabbits away from the tar baby known as the Beazley case.

Two of Nino Scalia's kids, John and Eugene, work for Bush's legal team. And proud papa Nino's trying to get a cushy Federal appointment for one of the lads, though Ted Kennedy is doing his best to block that particular bit of graceless nepotism.

As for Clarence Thomas, his wife Betty works for the Bushes, too -- on their transition team.

Both of these connections are far more intimate than the ones with J. Michael Luttig, and far more worthy of conflict-of interest recusals. Yet there were no recusals by Scalia or Thomas in *Bush v. Gore*.

Gee, I wonder why?