The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
When courts — especially the most powerful ones — make decisions, it’s important to know whether the justices are in the back pockets of powerful interests their decisions affect. For that reason, state supreme courts have rules requiring their justices to disclose information about their money and their gifts.
But some disclosure practices are more forthcoming than others. This year, the Ohio Supreme Court slipped from an “average” rating to one of “poor,” according to a scorecard by the nonpartisan watchdog organization Fix the Court.
The issue of judicial transparency took on new urgency in 2023 when the news organization ProPublica revealed that U.S. Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito took undisclosed luxury trips underwritten by billionaires. They did so after making decisions that enhanced the political power of the rich guys who paid for their travel.
That might sound like bribery. But Thomas, Alito and colleagues of all ideological stripes have issued decisions making it much harder to prosecute public officials for taking bribes.
So it’s perhaps not much of a surprise that public faith in the courts is at a historic low.
One way to perhaps improve public faith in the courts would be to impose more robust reporting requirements when it comes to the freebies judges receive, advocates for transparency say. Again this year, Fix the Court requested disclosures from all state supreme court chief justices and used a system to determine their adequacy.
States got up to 10 points based on how quickly their supreme courts answered a disclosure request. Another 10 points were available if disclosures included justices’ and their spouses’ non-investment income, justices’ reimbursements, gifts, liabilities, investments, and whether they signed disclosures swearing they were accurate.
Another two points were available if state supreme court justices were required to disclose four kinds of information that federal judges aren’t. They include the value of gifts and reimbursement, separate real-estate disclosures and an affirmation that the justice attended ethics training the previous year.
In last year’s report, the Ohio Supreme Court got an “average” grade of 24. Its rating fell to 20, or “poor,” in this year’s report due to a slower response.
It found other matters of concern.
“Chief Justice (Sharon) Kennedy is a prolific receiver of gifts, having received gifts valued at more than $75 from (mostly) the same half dozen couples for years,” it said. “Unfortunately, the report requires neither a description of the gifts (just the source) nor a dollar amount, so the lavishness and propriety of the gifts remain in question. This would be an easy fix for the Ohio court or its legislature to make.”
Andy Ellinger, the court’s director of public information, was asked what specific gifts Kennedy received and what their value was. Without such disclosure, how is the public to know if the justice received a steak dinner or a luxury trip aboard a private jet to Indonesia, he was asked.
Ellinger directed such questions to the individual justices.
“The Court remains committed to complying with all applicable rules and laws and to fostering public confidence in the impartiality and integrity of its decisions,” he said in an email.
As for the “poor” rating Fix the Court gave the Ohio Supreme Court, Ellinger said “the Ohio Supreme Court does not comment on third-party ratings or methodologies.”
In a written statement, Fix the Court founder Gabe Roth said complete, easily accessible financial disclosures are meant to restore badly needed public confidence in the courts.
“Disclosure laws exist for a reason,” Roth said. “But if judges’ reports are hard to find or minimal in detail, then they’re of little use for much needed oversight. All hope is not lost, though. Like with so much of Fix the Court’s work, a sustained, apolitical effort to improve the state of play will yield results.”
