The legal system is a highly complex entity full of checks and balances to ensure justice is done fairly. One of the best arguments for hiring a Eugene, Oregon criminal attorney is their familiarity with this system and how various interests must be considered every step of the way to avoid conflicts of interest.
Especially when the client involved is a powerful corporatation, investigating the ownership stakes and holdings of judicial officials is an essential step. Discovering information pertaining to conflicts of interest can dramatically change the way a case might be tried and who might be allowed to act in official judicial capacities.
Eugene Criminal Lawyer - Supreme Court Implications
For obvious reasons, justices of the Supreme Court come under especially rigorous scrutiny. Like other judges, they are subject to an interest check designed to suss out any potential fiduciary conflicts that might exist before the outset of a trial.
Unlike other judges, however, the decisions of the Supreme court set precedent which guides the rest of the nation. This means the effect of any potential conflict, however minor, could have dramatic implications.
Recent news of Chief Justice John Roberts being himself late in the process of a case before the Supreme Court only serves to underline the importance of thorough judicial interest checks.
Chief Justice Roberts' Fairly Common Problem
Chief Justice Roberts had no idea he held stock in the parent company of Life Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., when the Life Technologies vs. Primera trial began in 2015. Like both Justice Breyer and Justice Alito, Chief Justice Roberts owns stock in many different companies across a number of different industries.
The fact that a routine interest check conducted within the Chief Justice’s chambers did not turn up the relationship between Chief Justice Roberts and Life Technologies was not in and of itself unusual. For instance, Justice Breyer heard arguments in a case in 2014 involving a company his wife owned stock.
His wife sold the stock she owned in the question and Justice Breyer stayed on the case. Earlier, in 2009, Justice Alito refused to recuse himself from a case involving Disney, a company that was owned in part by his own children.
Eugene Criminal Attorney - Conflicts of Interest
Every court is subject to possible conflicts of interest. And, though we can be pretty certain that the examples from the Supreme Court we just looked at are benign, this is unfortunately not always the case.
Knowing that not even the Supreme Court is immune from possible undue influence should serve as a reminder that every defendant needs professional representation from a qualified Eugene, Oregon criminal lawyer. In the appeals process, discovering conflicts of interest is one way to overturn a conviction.
If you believe that you have been wrongly imprisoned due to a conflict of interest, you are no alone. Though it seems like the system should be able to find every such conflict before a judicial outcome is effect, sometimes it does not. A competant Eugene, Oregon criminal defense lawyer will work tireless to discover whether you have been a victim of an undiscovered conflict of interest. If it can happen at the Supreme Court, it can happen to you.
SWIPE FOR MORE CATEGORIES
