The nose knows ‘The judge said it best in one word: Wow,” tweeted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse this morning. Michael Ponzer, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts comments on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ethics stink. “What has gone wrong with the Supreme Court’s sense of smell?” Ponzer asks in the New York Times. He has had to abide by a written code of conduct since 1984, before any of the sitting justices were on the bench. In those years, he’s had a few complaints filed against him, but so far none found to have merit. Ponzer’s colleagues know not just to stay inside the ethical lines, but well inside them. But the Roberts court? The recent descriptions of the behavior of some of our justices and particularly their attempts to defend their conduct have not just raised my eyebrows; they’ve raised the whole top of my head. Lavish, no-cost vacations? Hypertechnical arguments about how a free private airplane flight is a kind of facility? A justice’s spouse prominently involved in advocating on issues before the court without the justice’s recusal? Repeated omissions in mandatory financial disclosure statements brushed under the rug as inadvertent? A justice’s taxpayer-financed staff reportedly helping to promote her books? Private school tuition for a justice’s family member covered by a wealthy benefactor? Wow. Although the exact numbers fluctuate because of vacancies, the core of our federal judiciary comprises roughly 540 magistrate judges, 670 district judges, 180 appeals court judges and nine Supreme Court justices — fewer than 1,500 men and women…