us-supreme-court
What does Justice Anthony Kennedy mean by &#39;you&#39;re recused&#39;?
<p>I refer to <a href="https://youtu.be/_EeU6Lo_i7I?t=4291" rel="nofollow noreferrer">71:31</a>. </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>71:31 And Hugo Black stands up and stalks out<br>
  71:34 of the room, which is our polite way of saying, <strong>you're recused.</strong><br>
  71:38 And so, the argument went on.<br>
  71:41 And at the end of the argument, the attorney<br>
  71:43 said, now, I don't know why Hugo did that,<br>
  71:45 because he's my cousin. </p>
</blockquote>

<ol>
<li><p>Did Kennedy J misspeak by using the personal pronoun '<strong>you're</strong>'?
Isn't the Justice who 'stands up and stalks out of the room' the one who's recusing himself (no female justices then)? </p></li>
<li><p>Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is Kennedy J implying a conflict of interest between the lawyer and Black J as they're cousins? </p></li>
</ol>

<p>As I understand the story, Black recused himself because the attorney was his cousin.  I think the joke is that the attorney thought it wasn't necessary for Black to do so, perhaps because the attorney didn't understand how seriously conflicts of interest are taken.</p>

<p>I don't think Kennedy misspoke; I think he's just used the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you" rel="nofollow noreferrer">generic you</a> construct, in which "you" is used as an impersonal pronoun instead of "one".  His sentence could be rephrased more formally as:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Hugo Black stands up and stalks out of the room, which among Supreme Court justices is a polite way to say that one is recused.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In other words, Black's action is equivalent to him saying "I am recused".</p>
