Thurgood Marshall because of his experience of discrimination did bring a special perspective to the court. That’s what his colleagues on the court so valued him for as all the tributes pouring in after his retirement attested.

Lawyers like to leave no stone unturned, provided they can charge by the stone.

There have been so many examples of highly qualified judges of enormous integrity who lost their positions because they were in fact disabled from speaking out to defend a controversial opinion.

There are cases in which somebody has demonstrated just such an outrageous disregard for the bounds of an acceptable decision that you want a measure of accountability.

Ironically enough, if the case involves race, and one claims that race is a disqualifying factor, nobody could hear the case. Everybody comes to these cases with some preconceptions, and the premise of our judicial system is that judges by training and by ethical codes are obligated to set those prejudices aside and to decide on the facts and the law. And to claim that somebody can't simply because of their racial identity is deeply offensive.

We don't want to disqualify individuals who are selected partly because they bring that diverse experience to the court in cases where that experience is most likely to make a difference.

You can understand why the original framers of judicial ethics thought it would be undignified and would call into question the legitimacy of the judicial decision-making process to have mudslinging by judges, but the way that we hobble people of enormous integrity from defending themselves is, I think, deeply problematic in states where you have an elected judiciary, or a judge is subject to recall.