Supreme Court Secrecy Includes Reasons for Recusal (Adam Liptak, NY Times, April 9, 2026)

In the words of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "Secrecy is for losers -- for people who don't understand the value of the information."  James Madison wrote William T. Barry on August 4, 1822: "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowlege will for ever govern ignorance: and a people who mean to be their own Governours, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

From The New York Times:

Supreme Court Secrecy Includes Reasons for Recusal

Justices often don’t disclose why they disqualify themselves from hearing cases. Their silence echoes the court’s unexplained emergency orders.

Richard Lazarus in his office in Cambridge, Mass.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

By Adam Liptak

Adam Liptak is the chief legal correspondent and host of The Docket.

April 9, 2026Updated 2:00 p.m. ET

You’re reading The Docket newsletter.  Adam Liptak helps you make sense of legal developments in a turbulent time.

What I’m Reading

• “Last Branch Standing,” by Sarah Isgur. A breezy, entertaining, anecdote-rich and not always convincing defense of the court from a well-sourced former Trump Justice Department spokeswoman who is now the editor of Scotusblog.

• “Scientific Education Among U.S. Judges,” a study by Christa Laser in The American University Law Review. It found that federal judges’ udergraduate degrees were most commonly in political science, history, business, economics and English. Only 7 percent majored in anything remotely scientific.

• “Major Questions,” a new newsletter on the Supreme Court from Jesse Wegman, who spent a dozen years on The New York Times’s editorial board writing vivid, biting takes on law and politics