Clarence Thomas tends to be one of the more controversial Supreme Court Justices and now he's added a new topic for people to debate: accepting gifts. All justices accept gifts, but they typically report only small, token gifts from friends or well-wishers. Thomas reports accepting incredible gifts with huge values.

The LA Times reports:

The gifts ... included a Bible once owned by the 19th century author and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, which Thomas valued at $19,000, and a bust of President Lincoln valued at $15,000. He also took a free trip aboard a private jet to the exclusive Bohemian Grove club in Northern California — arranged by a wealthy Texas real estate investor who helped run an advocacy group that filed briefs with the Supreme Court. ... Thomas has reported accepting much more valuable gifts than his Supreme Court colleagues over the last six years, according to their disclosure forms on file at the court.

[I]n October, an American Bar Assn. panel called for tightening the rules to forbid judges from taking expensive gifts, free tickets and other valuable items, regardless of who is the donor. "Why would someone do that — give a gift to Clarence Thomas? Unless they are family members or really close friends, the only reason to give gifts is to influence the judge," said Mark I. Harrison, a Phoenix lawyer who heads the ABA's Commission on the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. "And we think it is not helpful to have judges accepting gifts for no apparent reason."

Between 1998 and 2003, Thomas received over USD $42,000 in gifts. The next highest gift-recipient was Sandra Day O'Connor, at less than USD $6,000. From there the amounts keep dropping, which means that Thomas doesn't just receive more than the others, but is an entire class by himself.

Defenders say that judges shouldn't refuse gifts from friends, but why is it then that other judges — including other Supreme Court justices — refuse the lavish gifts that Thomas keeps receiving? One person interviewed for the story reports that a friend who became a judge even refused to have that person buy him lunch. Would buying lunch really be so awful? It's not nearly in the same league as having someone buy you new tires or pay for a relative's education, but the judge doesn't want there to even be a chance that someone might question his impartiality.

He, like other judges, cares both about being impartial and about appearing impartial because the appearance of impartiality is key to a judge's decisions being respected. Being impartial without also appearing impartial doesn't do anyone any good. That, however, is the road that Clarence Thomas is traveling.

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