By Gabe Roth, FTC executive director

Today marks 500 days since the Supreme Court adopted a Code of Conduct.

As Noah Feldman wrote last year, the Code only works if there are “prominent examples of justices recusing themselves or taking other steps that publicly demonstrate that they are following [it].”

It’s impossible to know for certain, and I’m confident that when I ask the Court about it they won’t respond, but it’s reasonable to believe at least two merits-stage recusals in recent weeks only occurred on account of the Code: Justice Gorsuch’s in Seven County Infrastructure v. Eagle Co., and Justice Barrett’s in the consolidated religious charter schools cases being argued next month.

And of course, we don’t for certain know why they recused.

Thinking more about the Code, the last page of the document mentions that the process of improving ethics at the Court might not be one-and-done. It could be iterative. The justices may “examin[e] best practices,” consider the use of conflict-check software, potentially add staff or other resources to its Office of Legal Counsel, maybe add guidance on disclosures beyond the yearly instructions and possibly seek advice from the Financial Disclosure Committee when they have filing questions.

Has any of this happened? I asked the Court yesterday and await a response.

In the meantime, let’s recall what an ethical Supreme Court would look like.

It would issue explanations of all of its justices’ recusals at the merits and cert. stages, not just two of the nine.

It would bar the acceptance of lavish gifts, whether physical gifts like concert tickets or gifts of travel and lodging in private planes, yachts and (likely) castles.

Its justices would avoid appearing political (starting by not swearing in senators) and would seek out ideologically diverse hosts and audiences when appearing in public (more of this, less of this).

It would ensure there’s an enforcement mechanism to its ethics code, on which there are many sound options.

And its justices would treat everyone in their courtroom and in their chambers with respect (luckily, the nine appear to be adhering to this one, which is more than I can say about some lower court judges).