Kennedy Recused After Late-Discovered Conflict From 1985 Case

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy will sit out of an environmental case to be argued in April because he heard an earlier iteration of the case while he was sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 33 years ago.

Kennedy had participated in the case up until March 23, when the U.S. Supreme Court announced his recusal.

“The ordinary conflict check conducted in Justice Kennedy’s Chambers inadvertently failed to find this conflict,” the court said in a letter from the clerk’s office.

This isn’t the first time that the justices’ chambers have failed to identify a conflict. ...