What Did the Justices Say They Would Do?

The New Yorker only publishes a few letters each week, so submitting one is always a long shot (and they only respond to the ones they are going to use). So here is my letter from a few weeks ago, responding to Jeannie Suk Gerson's piece on "Justices and Money," in which she made a small but (in my view) important mistake:

Jeannie Suk Gerson mistakenly reports that the justices of the Supreme Court voluntarily agreed, in 1991, to “follow the ethics rules” and abide by the “Code of Conduct” adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States (“Justices and Money,” May 22). In fact, the justices’ 1991 statement applied only to the gift and outside income provisions of the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. The Court has steadfastly declined to adopt, or modify for its own circumstances, the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, as declared by Chief Justice Roberts in his 2011 Year End Report and reaffirmed by all nine justices in their Statement of Ethics Principles and Practices, recently provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The distinction is important because the Code of Conduct, adopted by the Judicial Conference in 1973 and applicable only to the lower federal courts, covers many issues beyond gift and income disclosure, including political activity, soliciting charitable contributions, public comments on pending or impending cases, ex parte and leaked communications, and, as increasingly appears necessary, avoiding “even the appearance of impropriety in all activities.”