548
Opinion of the Court
Almost all of the revision (paragraphs (b)(2) through (b)(5)) merely rendered objective and spelled out in detail the "interest" and "relationship" grounds of recusal that had previously been covered by § 455. But the other two paragraphs of the revision brought into § 455 elements of general "bias and prejudice" recusal that had previously been addressed only by § 144. Specifically, paragraph (b)(1) entirely duplicated the grounds of recusal set forth in § 144 ("bias or prejudice"), but (1) made them applicable to all justices, judges, and magistrates (and not just district judges), and (2) placed the obligation to identify the existence of those grounds upon the judge himself, rather than requiring recusal only in response to a party affidavit.
Subsection (a), the provision at issue here, was an entirely new "catchall" recusal provision, covering both "interest or relationship" and "bias or prejudice" grounds, see Liljeberg v. Health Services Acquisition Corp., 486 U. S. 847 (1988)— but requiring them all to be evaluated on an objective basis, so that what matters is not the reality of bias or prejudice but its appearance. Quite simply and quite universally, recusal was required whenever "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
What effect these changes had upon the "extrajudicial source" doctrine—whether they in effect render it obsolete, of continuing relevance only to § 144, which seems to be properly invocable only when § 455(a) can be invoked anyway— depends upon what the basis for that doctrine was. Petitioners suggest that it consisted of the limitation of § 144 to "personal bias or prejudice," bias or prejudice officially acquired being different from "personal" bias or prejudice. And, petitioners point out, while § 455(b)(1) retains the phrase "personal bias or prejudice," § 455(a) proscribes all partiality, not merely the "personal" sort.
It is true that a number of Courts of Appeals have relied upon the word "personal" in restricting § 144 to extrajudicial sources, see, e. g., Craven v. United States, 22 F. 2d 605, 607-
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007