Je recuse

[Ronald Butters]

Let me recap:

1. Initially, someone (Wilson?) noted that a witness was said to have "recused himself" from a courtroom because he found someone else's testimony upsetting. The implication was that this was a "mistaken" use of the word "recuse."

2. Someone else (JLighter?) wrote that "recuse" just means "excuse." The implication seemed to be that the use of "recuse" was NOT mistaken (Quote: "Yeah, but it's got to be like the same thing as "excused himself," right? I mean it's obvious. Judges excuse themselves but we call it recuse themselves. Because it's court. It's like more official.) Perhaps JL was being ironic, but if so the inrony was not clear to me.

3. I wrote back that, well, no,  "recuse" and "excuse" are not synonymous. When one recuses oneself, one "withdraws" (from participation) (because one has a potential conflict). In contrast, when one excuses oneself, one merely indicates intent to depart (for whatever reason--although, of course, one may offer an "excuse"). The person who left the courtroom may have excused himself, but he could not have recused himself.

4. Echoing the language of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary (though she cites no source),  JLimpert challenged myu comments with what seemed to me to be the puzzling assertion that "recuse" does not mean "withdraw," it means "exclude."  This does not make sense to me. There is no significant difference in this context between "withdraw" and "exclude" that I can see.

5. In my response, I cited NOAD's definition that said, "excuse oneself from a case because of a possible conflict of interest or lack of impartiality." That is, "recuse" does not mean the same thing as "excuse," it means "excuse oneself from a case because of a possible conflict of interest or lack of impartiality."

6. In addition, I indicated a belief that the NOAD definition is superior to the one that that JLimpert is using in that the recuser recuses herself to avoid the potential for bias based on conflict of interest, not merely to avoid the potential for conflict of interest.

I hope that Limpert is now able to find "sense" in what is, really, a very simple matter: "recuse" does not merely mean "excuse."

On Oct 6, 2010, at 11:21 PM, Jocelyn Limpert wrote:

> RB cites a dictionary entry with "excuse oneself" to back up his point that
> it doesn't mean that -- what sense does that make, pray tell?

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