"Avoiding even the appearance of impropriety"

Improper Advances: Talking dream jobs with the judge out of court.

Four days before President Bush nominated John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court on July 19, an appeals court panel of three judges, including Judge Roberts, handed the Bush administration a big victory in a hotly contested challenge to the president's military commissions. The challenge was brought by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Guantanamo detainee. President Bush was a defendant in the case because he had personally, in writing, found "reason to believe" that Hamdan was a terrorist subject to military tribunals. The appeals court upheld the rules the president had authorized for these military commissions, and it rejected Hamdan's human rights claims—including claims for protection under the Geneva Conventions.

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...Roberts had several interviews with administration officials contemporaneous with the progress of the Hamdan appeal. One occurred even before the appeal was argued. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales interviewed the judge on April 1. Back then, it was an ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, not Justice O'Connor, who was expected to retire. The attorney general, of course, heads the Justice Department, which represents the defendants in Hamdan's case. And as White House counsel, Gonzales had advised the president on the requirements of the Geneva Conventions, which were an issue in the case.

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[T]he problem in Hamdan is not that Roberts may have cast his vote to improve his chances of promotion. We believe he is a man of integrity who voted as he thought the law required. The problem is that if one side that very much wants to win a certain case can secretly approach the judge about a dream job while the case is still under active consideration, and especially if the judge shows interest in the job, the public's trust in the judiciary (not to mention the opposing party's) suffers because the public can never know how the approach may have affected the judge's thinking.

Via Vague Nihilism.