waterworld
Smitty: I see the oil drilling moratorium case and the gay marriage case as somewhat different on the conflict question, although I tend to think neither judge necessarily had a conflict that required recusing from the cases.
There’s a federal statute, 28 USC 455 that lays out when a federal judge is required to take himself or herself off a case. If a judge has a financial ownership interest, no matter how small, in one of the parties to a lawsuit, then the judge must step aside. In the oil drilling case, the judge did not own stock in any one of the actual parties to the lawsuit. That may have been contrived by the group of companies that filed the suit, but I don’t actually know that, and I don’t think the judge has to speculate about that. If the party on the other side (the US government) was truly concerned, it could have asked the judge to recuse.
In the gay marriage case, the issue is a bit different. The question there is whether the judge is biased or prejudiced concerning one of the parties, or whether he or a relative has a substantial interest in the outcome of the case. So if a male judge wanted to get married to his boyfriend, then he would have a stake in the outcome and should recuse himself. Or, if he had made up his mind about the issue in advance of the litigation and could not give a fair hearing, he should recuse. But I see no reason for the judge to recuse simply because of his sexual preference. The fact that none of the parties asked him to step aside is telling, also, as others have noted already. Each side evidently concluded that the judge was at a minimum fair, or perhaps even good for them.
I’m not all pollyanna-ish about this, though. Judges are, as far as I can tell, people, and they come with all the baggage the rest of us do. I would never assume that they are not influenced outside of their cases. And lawyers are loath to ask a judge to recuse, for fear of the fallout when the lawyer appears in that judge’s court on another case. But legal conflicts are difficult to prove, with the exception of things like stock ownership or direct personal stake in the outcome.