Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Justice Scalia denied a motion asking him to recuse himself from a case involving Vice President Cheney, after news reports criticized him for going on a duck-hunting trip with the Vice President while the case was pending before the Court.
Scalia explained in a lengthy memorandum that friendship with a government official named only in his official capacity has never been grounds for a Justice to step aside, and that the hunting trip created no appearance of bias requiring his withdrawal.
“If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court Justice can be bought so cheap, the Nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined.”
Scalia rejects the suggestion that a hunting trip could compromise his impartiality.
How it got here: The Supreme Court had granted review of a mandamus dispute over discovery in the case; while that review was pending, Sierra Club filed a motion asking Justice Scalia to recuse himself.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Sierra Club and Judicial Watch sued Vice President Cheney, arguing that a White House energy task force he chaired had improperly included industry insiders without complying with a federal open-meetings law. While the resulting appeal was pending before the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia joined Cheney on a duck-hunting trip in Louisiana, prompting Sierra Club to ask that Scalia remove himself from the case.
The question before the Court
Should Justice Scalia have stepped aside from a case involving Vice President Cheney because he had gone duck hunting with him while the appeal was pending?
Why it matters
The decision set a public benchmark for how far Justices' personal relationships and social activities with government officials can go without triggering recusal, particularly in cases where an official is sued only in his professional role rather than personally.
What changes now
The motion to recuse was denied, so Justice Scalia continued to participate in the underlying case concerning discovery obligations under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This memorandum resolved only the recusal question and did not decide the merits of the discovery dispute, which the Court would go on to address separately in the underlying mandamus case.
What this does not decide
This memorandum decides only whether Justice Scalia personally should recuse himself; it says nothing about whether the Vice President's energy task force actually violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act or whether the lower courts properly ordered discovery in the underlying case.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Scalia framed the legal test under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a): a Justice must step aside only if his impartiality 'might reasonably be questioned,' judged from the facts as they actually existed, not as rumored or reported by the press.
- He explained that friendship with a government official has traditionally never required recusal in suits against that official in his official capacity, because such suits seek relief against the government, not against the person -- unlike personal-liability suits where an official's own money or freedom is at stake.
- Applying that distinction, Scalia found that because Cheney was sued only as chairman of the task force, and any ruling would affect only government records and procedures rather than Cheney's own reputation or finances, the case remained an ordinary official-capacity dispute.
- He evaluated the hunting trip itself and concluded that the group setting of roughly thirteen hunters, the absence of any private conversation about the case, and the cost-neutral nature of the flight arrangements gave no factual basis for suspecting bias.
- Scalia also weighed newspaper editorials calling for recusal but concluded that inaccurate and inflammatory press coverage cannot substitute for the reasonable-observer standard, which requires assessing all the actual surrounding facts rather than public sentiment.
- Having found no factual basis for questioning his impartiality under established recusal principles, Scalia concluded that recusal was not merely optional but legally impermissible, since a Justice may only recuse when the governing standard actually requires it.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Microsoft Corp. v. United States (530 U. S. 1301)
Relies on this earlier recusal opinion for the rule that impartiality is judged by the actual facts, not rumor.