Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says the federal judiciary needs to do more to ensure judges don't participate in cases where they have financial conflicts of interest.
Roberts made the comments as part of his annual report on the federal judiciary released Friday evening.
Roberts pointed to a series of stories recently in The Wall Street Journal that found that 'between 2010 and 2018, 131 federal judges participated in a total of 685 matters involving companies in which they or their families owned shares of stock.'
Federal judges and Supreme Court justices are required under a federal ethics law to recuse themselves from cases where they have a personal financial interest.
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said in a year-end report published on Friday that U.S. federal judges need 'more rigorous' ethics training to ensure they are not hearing disputes in which they have a financial interest
'Let me be crystal clear: the Judiciary takes this matter seriously. We expect judges to adhere to the highest standards, and those judges violated an ethics rule,' Roberts wrote in the nine-page report.
Roberts is one of three justices on the nine-member Supreme Court to hold individual stocks. Those holdings sometimes result in the justices recusing themselves from a case or selling stock in order to participate.
The other justices who own individual stocks are Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito. In the past those holdings have occasionally resulted in issues.
In 2016, Roberts heard arguments in a patent case but discovered after arguments that he held more than 1,200 shares of stock in a parent company of one of the parties. He notified the parties that he would not continue to participate in the case.
Seated from left: Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, standing from left: Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett pose during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC last
