Ethics and the Power of the United States Supreme Court

Throughout American history, the rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States have had widespread and lasting impacts on the country, as they often involve asserting constitutional interpretations and therefore determining how wide-reaching laws work. Given this power held by the Court, in recent years there have been concerns about how ethical circumstances affect that power. The independence of the SCOTUS from the other two branches of the federal government has been jeopardized by the influence of presidents who appointed the Supreme Court justices and the fact that these justices are the only federal judges to not be bound to an ethical code of conduct. These complications bring up the question of how this potential for breaches of morals overflows into the wide-reaching power of this institution.