Recusal and refusal February 24, 2021 In 2004, the late US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia went duck-hunting with the then vice president, Dick Cheney. A few weeks prior, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear a case in which Cheney was a party. Predictably, few were amused. Headlines called for his recusal; many called for his impeachment. In a 21-page defence, Scalia explained why he would not be recusing himself. The case against Cheney was in his capacity as vice president, he said, and so their private interactions were irrelevant. “If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court Justice can be bought so cheap, the Nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined,” he wrote.