Cite as: 536 U. S. 765 (2002)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
Clause cannot be resolved without an examination of that interaction in light of the interests the pledges or promises provision serves.
A
All parties to this case agree that, whatever the validity of the Announce Clause, the State may constitutionally prohibit judicial candidates from pledging or promising certain results. See Brief for Petitioners Republican Party of Minnesota et al. 36-37; Tr. of Oral Arg. 14-16 (petitioners' acknowledgment that candidates may be barred from making a "pledge or promise of an outcome"); Brief for Respondents 11; see also Brief for Brennan Center for Justice et al. as Amici Curiae 23 ("All of the parties and amici in this case agree that judges should not make explicit promises or commitments to decide particular cases in a particular manner.").
The reasons for this agreement are apparent. Pledges or promises of conduct in office, however commonplace in races for the political branches, are inconsistent "with the judge's obligation to decide cases in accordance with his or her role." Tr. of Oral Arg. 16; see Brief for Petitioners Republican Party of Minnesota et al. 36 ("[B]ecause [judges] have a duty to decide a case on the basis of the law and facts before them, they can be prohibited, as candidates, from making such promises."). This judicial obligation to avoid prejudgment corresponds to the litigant's right, protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, to "an impartial and disinterested tribunal in both civil and criminal cases," Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U. S. 238, 242 (1980). The proscription against pledges or promises thus represents an accommodation of "constitutionally protected interests [that] lie on both sides of the legal equation." Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 400 (2000) (Breyer, J., concurring). Balanced against the candidate's interest in free expression is the litigant's "powerful and independent constitutional interest in fair adjudicative procedure." Marshall, 446 U. S., at 243; see Buckley, 997 F. 2d,
813
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