Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
Incumbent
Assumed office 
October 19, 1991
Nominated by George H. W. Bush
Preceded by Thurgood Marshall
Born June 23, 1948 (1948-06-23) (age 61)
Pin Point, Georgia
Spouse Kate Ambush Thomas (div.)
Virginia Lamp Thomas
Alma mater College of the Holy Cross
Yale University
Religion Roman Catholic[1]

Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist. He has served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991, the second African American to serve on the nation's highest court (after Justice Thurgood Marshall). Appointed by President George H. W. Bush, Thomas's career in the Supreme Court has seen him take a conservative approach to cases while adhering to the principle of originalism.

Thomas has been referred to as the leading conservative in America.[2] He says that the exact phrasing of the Constitution is the surest guide to its meaning, and he would severely limit the Court's right to review legislation.[2] His decisions frequently disagree with those of the Court majority.[2]

Contents

Early life

Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia in a small, "dirt-poor"[3] Gullah-speaking community outside Savannah,[4] where his relatives shucked oysters and sold crabs for a living.[5] He learned to speak the Gullah language as a child, but chose to assimilate into his English-speaking class.[6] His father left his family when he was only two years old.[7] After a house fire left them homeless, Thomas and his younger brother Myers were taken to Savannah while their mother worked as a domestic employee, while sister Emma stayed behind with Pin Point relatives.

When Thomas was seven, the family moved in with his mother's father, Myers Anderson, in Savannah.[5] While he had less than a third-grade education, Anderson had a fuel oil business that also sold ice. Thomas calls his grandfather "the greatest man I have ever known"[5] and often helped him make deliveries. When Thomas was 10, Anderson started taking the family to help at a farm every day from sunrise to sunset.[5] This led Thomas to complain that "slavery was over" and his grandfather to reply, "Not in my house."[5] His grandfather believed in hard work and self-reliance and would counsel Thomas to "never let the sun catch you in bed in the morning."

Thomas was the only black person at his high school in Savannah where he was an honors student.[8]

Raised Roman Catholic (he later attended an Episcopal church with his wife, but returned to the Catholic Church in the late 1990s), Thomas considered entering the priesthood at the age of 16, becoming the first-ever black student to attend St. John Vianney's Minor Seminary (Savannah) on the Isle of Hope.[5] He also attended Conception Seminary College, a Roman Catholic seminary in Missouri, briefly. No one in Thomas's family had attended college, and Thomas has said that during his first year in seminary he was one of only "three or four" blacks attending the school.[8] Thomas told interviewers[9] that he left the seminary (and the call for priesthood) after overhearing a student say, in response to the news that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot, "Good, I hope the son of a bitch died."[3][10] He did not think the church did enough to combat racism.[5]

At a nun's suggestion, Thomas attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where as a sophomore transfer student he had to adjust to a New England atmosphere very different from what he was used to in Savannah.[8] At Holy Cross, Thomas helped found the Black Student Union and once walked out after an incident in which black students were punished while white students were not for committing the same violation.[8] Some of the priests negotiated with the protesting black students to return to school,[8] and Thomas graduated in 1971 with an A.B., cum laude in English. A few of Thomas' classmates at Holy Cross were future defense attorney Ted Wells and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward P. Jones.[11][5] He then attended Yale Law School from which he received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1974. Judge Thomas told Dennis Prager that Thomas's Yale law degree was not taken seriously by law firms to which he applied after graduating, and potential employers assumed he obtained it because of affirmative action policies.[12] Thomas said that he was "asked pointed questions, unsubtly suggesting that they doubted I was as smart as my grades indicated."[13]

Influences

In 1975, when Thomas read Race and Economics by economist Thomas Sowell, he found an intellectual foundation for this philosophy.[7][14] The book criticized social reforms by government and instead argued for individual action to overcome circumstances and adversity. He was also influenced by Ayn Rand's bestselling book The Fountainhead and would later require his staffers to watch the 1949 film version.[7] Thomas later said that novelist Richard Wright had been the most influential writer in his life; Wright's books Native Son and Black Boy "capture[d] a lot of the feelings that I had inside that you learn how to repress."[15]

Justice Thomas is one of twelve Catholic justices{ {ndash}} out of 110 total in the history of the Supreme Court.[16]

Personal life

Thomas has one child, Jamal Adeen, from his first marriage. This marriage, to college sweetheart Kathy Grace Ambush, lasted from 1971 until their 1981 separation and 1984 divorce.[15][17] Thomas married Virginia Lamp in 1987.

Since joining the Supreme Court, Thomas requested an annulment of his first marriage from the Roman Catholic Church, which was granted by the Tribunal of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington. He was reconciled to the Church in the mid-1990s and remains a practicing Catholic,[18][19] although he criticized the Church in his 2007 autobiography for its approach to ending racism in the 1960s, saying it was not as "adamant about ending racism then as it is about ending abortion now."[20]

In 1994, Thomas performed, at his home, the wedding ceremony for radio host Rush Limbaugh's third marriage, to Marta Fitzgerald.[21]

As his wife grew up in Nebraska and attended college at the University of Nebraska, Thomas is an avid Nebraska Cornhuskers fan who attends Husker football games, and in 2007 met with the 2006 National Championship Husker Volleyball team, telling them he bled Husker red.[22][23]

Career

Early career

Official Equal Employment Opportunity Commission portrait of Thomas

From 1974 to 1977, Thomas was an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri under then State Attorney General John Danforth. When Danforth was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976 to 1979, Thomas left to become an attorney with Monsanto in St. Louis, Missouri. He moved to Washington DC and returned to work for Danforth from 1979 to 1981 as a Legislative Assistant. Both men shared a common bond in that both had studied to be ordained (although Thomas was Roman Catholic and Danforth was ordained Episcopalian). Danforth was to be instrumental in championing Thomas for the Supreme Court.

In 1981, he joined the Reagan administration. From 1981 to 1982, he served as Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. From 1982 to 1990 he was Chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC").

Federal judge

In June 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed Thomas to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, despite Thomas's initial protestations that he would not like to be a judge.[24] Thomas gained the support of other African-Americans such as former Transportation Secretary William Coleman, but said that when meeting white Democratic staffers in the United States Senate, he was "struck by how easy it had become for sanctimonious whites to accuse a black man of not caring about civil rights."[24]

Thomas's confirmation hearing was uneventful, and he developed warm relationships during his time at the federal court, including with fellow federal judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.[24]

Supreme Court appointment

Main article: Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination

When Justice William Brennan stepped down in 1990, Bush wanted to nominate Thomas as Brennan's replacement; he felt that replacing Marshall with Thomas could imply that Thomas received the appointment due to tokenism, but he then decided that Thomas had not yet had enough experience as a judge after only months on the federal bench.[24] Bush therefore nominated New Hampshire Supreme Court judge David Souter instead.[24]

On July 1, 1991 President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall, who had recently announced his retirement.[25] Marshall had been the only African-American justice on the court. Liberal legal author Jeffrey Toobin says Bush and others saw Thomas as "pretty much" the only qualified black candidate who would be a reliable conservative vote.[26] Thomas had flown to Kennebunkport, Maine to discuss the prospective appointment with Bush.[24]

After the appointment of David Souter and the ensuing disappointment of conservatives, White House chief of staff John Sununu had promised that the president would fill the next Supreme Court vacancy with a nominee so conservative that there would be a "knock-down, drag-out, bloody-knuckles, grass-roots fight" over confirmation.[27]

President Bush said that Thomas was the "best qualified [nominee] at this time."[24] The American Bar Association's (ABA) rating for Judge Thomas was split between "qualified" and "not qualified." Thomas had never argued a case in the high courts, though others had been appointed without Supreme Court experience.[28][29] Toobin says Thomas had never written a legal book, article, or brief of any consequence, and had been a judge for only a year.[28]

Organizations including the NAACP, the Urban League and the National Organization for Women opposed the appointment based on Thomas's criticism of affirmative action and suspicions that Thomas might not be a supporter of the Supreme Court judgment in Roe v. Wade; NOW and the NAACP had also protested Bush's previous Court appointee, David Souter.[30] Under questioning during confirmation hearings, Thomas repeatedly asserted that he had not formulated a position on the Roe decision.[31]

Some of the public statements of Thomas's opponents foreshadowed the confirmation fight that would occur. One such statement came from activist Florence Kennedy at a July 1991 conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Making reference to the failure of Robert Bork's nomination, she said of Thomas, "We're going to 'bork' him."[32]

Clarence Thomas's formal confirmation hearings began on September 10, 1991.[26] Thomas was reticent when answering senators' questions during the appointment process.[27] Four years earlier, Robert Bork had expounded on his very conservative judicial philosophy during his confirmation, and he had been defeated.[28] Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says Thomas gave the impression that he had no views.[28] For example, Thomas told Senator Patrick Leahy that he had never discussed Roe v. Wade.[28] When asked about abortion by Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Thomas stated "I believe the Constitution protects the right to privacy and I have no reason or agenda to prejudge the issue, or to -- be predisposed to rule one way or the other on the issue of abortion which is a difficult issue."[33] When asked about cases dealing with substantive due process, Thomas stated "I do not believe that I either indicated that I agreed with the outcome in those cases... I simply raised the concerns, the discussions, and the court holdings, and I believe some of the problems that might occur in some considerations in the future. I tried to discuss it openly with him without reaching a judgment with respect to the outcome... I don't think that the court is going to revisit that area in the very near future."[33]

On Friday, September 27, the Judiciary Committee split 7-7 on Thomas, and his nomination went to the full Senate for voting.[28] As Toobin wrote, what happened afterward "seared [Thomas's] visage into the national consciousness."[34]

Allegations of sexual harassment

A few days before a full Senate vote was scheduled, information was leaked to the press from an FBI interview with Anita Hill, an attorney who had worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and the EEOC from 1981-1983. Thomas told the FBI that he had once promoted Allyson Duncan over Hill as his chief of staff, and Hill was liberal politically and "detested" Ronald Reagan.[15]

On October 11, 1991, Hill was called to testify during the re-opened Senate confirmation hearings.[15] Hill did not provide detailed descriptions in her original statements to the FBI but later testified at the Senate hearing:[15] "He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes....On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess....Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, 'Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?'"[35]   Hill also indicated that Thomas made reference to the pornographic actor Long Dong Silver.

Hill was the only person to testify at the Senate hearings that Thomas had harassed her or engaged in inappropriate conduct.[36] Angela Wright, who worked with Thomas at the EEOC before he fired her[37] for impropriety, told staff of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during an interview that Thomas had repeatedly made comments to her, much like those Hill says he made to her, including pressuring her for dates and commenting on her body.[38] [10] Wright said that Thomas made comments about her and other women's anatomy "quite often."[10] Wright told several senators' staff that Clarence Thomas asked her the size of her breasts.[38] Wright said that after she turned down Thomas for a date, Thomas began to express discontent with her work and eventually fired her.[38] Rose Jourdain said that Wright had spoken to her about Thomas at the original time of the events, but never testified before the Senate committee.[39] Jourdain said that Wright told her of "increasingly aggressive behavior" and Wright's becoming "increasingly upset and increasingly unnerved."[39] Jourdain alleged Thomas had made comments on Wright's bra size and legs, and of how Thomas once "had the nerve" to come to Wright's home.[40]

Another former Thomas assistant, Sukari Hardnett, wrote a letter about Thomas to the Senate committee.[41] Although Hardnett made it clear she was not accusing Thomas of sexual harassment, she told the Judiciary Committee that "if you were young, black, female, reasonably attractive and worked directly for Clarence Thomas, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female."[42][43][44]

Thomas denied all allegations of sexual harassment and sexual impropriety by Hill and the others. Of the committee's investigation of the accusations, Thomas said: "This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."[45]

Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, reporters for The Wall Street Journal, concluded in an investigative book on Thomas that “the preponderance of the evidence suggests” that Thomas lied under oath when he told the committee he had not harassed Hill.[37] Mayer and Abramson say Senator Joe Biden abdicated control of the Thomas confirmation hearings to Republican senators and did not call Angela Wright to the stand.[37] According to Mayer and Abramson, four women traveled to Washington DC to corroborate Anita Hill’s claims, including Wright and Jourdain.[37]

According to Mayer and Abramson, soon after Thomas was sworn in, three reporters for The Washington Post “burst into the newsroom almost simultaneously with information confirming that Thomas’ involvement with pornography far exceeded what the public had been led to believe.”[46] These reporters had eyewitness testimony and video rental records showing Thomas’ interest in and use of pornography.[47] However, because Thomas was already sworn in by the time the video store evidence emerged, The Washington Post dropped the story.[46]

Confirmation

After extensive debate, the committee sent the nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation either way. Thomas was confirmed by the Senate with a 52-48 vote on October 15, 1991, the narrowest margin for approval in more than a century.[48] The final floor vote was not along strictly party lines: 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats voted to confirm while 46 Democrats and two Republicans (Jim Jeffords (R-VT) and Bob Packwood[49] (R-OR)) voted to reject the nomination.

On October 23, 1991, Thomas took his seat as the 106th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Early Days on the Court

Though Thomas was immediately welcomed by most Justices, including Marshall, whom he was replacing, law clerks of the more liberal justices viewed Thomas with ill-disguised contempt, questioning his qualifications and intellectual heft.[50] According to Jan Crawford Greenburg, Justice Harry Blackmun allowed his clerks to refer to Christopher Landau, a Thomas clerk, as "Justice," because they saw him as the one really "running the show." Greenburg called this "a rude and glaring breach of protocol."[51] Greenburg says that pundits' portrayal of Thomas as Antonin Scalia's understudy was grossly inaccurate - she says that from early on, it was more often Scalia changing his mind to agree with Thomas, rather than the other way around.[52][53] However, Greenburg points out that the perceived extremity of Thomas's views pushed Justices Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy away.[54]

Later years on the Court

Thomas has rarely given media interviews during his time on the Court. He said in 2007: "One of the reasons I don't do media interviews is, in the past, the media often has its own script."[8]

Judicial philosophy

Clarence Thomas being sworn in by Byron White, as wife Virginia Lamp Thomas looks on.

Clarence Thomas is a conservative who acknowledges having some "libertarian leanings."[55] Thomas is often described as an originalist. He is seen as the most conservative member of the Supreme Court.[56][57][58][59]

Voting trends

Thomas voted with Justice Antonin Scalia 91 percent of the time during the court's 2006–07 session.[60] He voted with Justice John Paul Stevens the least, only 36% of the time.[61] Justice Thomas's forceful views have moderates like Sandra Day O'Connor further to the left.[62]

Stare Decisis

Although Thomas has been compared to Antonin Scalia, Thomas is less devoted to precedent than Scalia, who told Thomas' biographer that Thomas "doesn't believe in stare decisis, period. If a constitutional line of authority is wrong, he would say let's get it right."[63] Thomas believes that a wrong decision can and should be overturned, no matter how old it is.[64] Thomas's belief in originalism is strong; he has said, "When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution's original meaning."[64]

However, during his confirmation hearings Thomas said: "[S]tare decisis provides continuity to our system, it provides predictability, and in our process of case-by-case decision making, I think it is a very important and critical concept."[63]

Commerce Clause and states' rights

Thomas consistently supports a strict interpretation of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause[65] and supports limits on the power of federal government in favor of states' rights. In both United States v. Lopez and United States v. Morrison Thomas wrote a separate concurring opinion arguing for the original meaning of the commerce clause and criticizing the substantial effects formula. He wrote a sharply worded dissent in Gonzales v. Raich, a decision that permitted the federal government to arrest, prosecute, and imprison patients who were using medical marijuana. However, he previously authored United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, an earlier case that also permitted the federal government to inspect medical marijuana dispensaries (the Oakland case dealt with the issue of medical necessity rather than federalism).

Thomas sees manufacturing and agriculture as being outside of the scope of the Commerce Clause, and therefore not subject to federal regulation.[65] He believes federal legislators have abused the Commerce Clause, and his narrow view of it would invalidate much of the contemporary work of the federal government, if it were shared by the majority.[65]

Capital punishment

Thomas was among the dissenters in both Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons, which held that the Constitution prohibited the application of the death penalty to certain classes of persons. In Kansas v. Marsh, his opinion for the court indicated a belief that the Constitution affords states broad procedural latitude in imposing the death penalty provided they remain within the limits of Furman v. Georgia and Gregg v. Georgia, the 1976 case in which the court had reversed its 1972 ban on death sentences as long as states followed certain procedural guidelines.

Fourth Amendment

In the cases regarding the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, Thomas often favors police over defendants, although not always—he was in the majority in Kyllo v. United States and wrote separately in Indianapolis v. Edmond the opinion that the Constitution does not allow random stops of drivers. His opinion for the court in Board of Education v. Earls upheld drug testing for students involved in extracurricular activities, and wrote again for the court in Samson v. California, permitting random searches on parolees. He dissented in the case Georgia v. Randolph, which prohibited warrantless searches that one resident approves and the other opposes, arguing that the case was controlled by the court's decision in Coolidge v. New Hampshire.

Free speech

Among Supreme Court Justices, Thomas is typically the second most likely to uphold free speech claims (tied with Souter), as of 2002.[66] He has voted in favor of First Amendment claims in cases involving a wide variety of issues, including pornography, campaign contributions, political leafletting, religious speech, and commercial speech. On occasion, however, he disagrees with free speech claimants. For example, he dissented in Virginia v. Black, a case that struck down a Virginia statute that banned cross-burning, and he authored ACLU v. Ashcroft, which referred the Child Online Protection Act back to District Court, where COPA was overturned. In addition, Thomas believes that students have limited free speech rights in public schools, a view he expressed in his concurrence in Morse v. Frederick. In that case, he argued that the precedent of Tinker v. Des Moines should be overruled.

Executive power

Thomas has argued that the executive branch has broad powers under the constitution. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, he was the only Justice who sided entirely with the government and the Fourth Circuit's ruling, arguing for the important security interests at stake and the President's broad war-making powers. He also was one of three justices who dissented in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that the military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay required explicit congressional authorization because they conflicted with both the Unified Military Code of Justice and "at least" Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.[67] Thomas argued that Hamdan is an illegal combatant and therefore not protected by the Geneva Convention and also agreed with Justice Scalia that the Court was "patently erroneous" in its declaration of jurisdiction in this case.

Prisoners' Rights

In the Foucha case of Thomas's first term, Thomas dissented from the majority Supreme Court opinion removing from a mental institution a prisoner who had become sane.[68] Thomas cast the issue as a states' rights matter.[68]

In 1992's Hudson v. McMillan, Thomas said that injuries to a prisoner that involved a cracked lip, broken dental plate, loosened teeth, and cuts and bruises (all from what Thomas said was admittedly criminal police brutality) "did not rise to the level" of cruel and unusual punishment.[69] Thomas's vote was an early example of Thomas's willingness to be the sole dissenter (Scalia later joined the opinion).[69]

In 1992's Doggett v. United States, Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion for himself and William Rehnquist to uphold the conviction of a man who was indicted on a drug charge, but then not arrested for almost nine years.[70] Thomas wrote that dismissing the conviction "invites the Nation's [sic] judges to indulge in ad hoc and result-driven second guessing of the government's investigatory efforts. Our Constitution neither contemplates nor tolerates such a role."[70]

Racial issues

Thomas believes that the Constitution forbids any consideration of race.[71] He believes the Equal Protection Clause disallows any kind of race-based affirmative action or preferential treatment.[71] He has said directly that any use of race in college or law school admissions is always violative of the Constitution.[72]

Fourteenth Amendment

In Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow and Cutter v. Wilkinson, Thomas argued that the Establishment Clause was not incorporated to states by the Fourteenth Amendment, directly challenging the precedent Everson v. Board of Education.

Abortion

Thomas has advocated the reversal of Roe v. Wade. He joined the dissenting opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which said "... the longstanding traditions of American society have permitted abortion to be legally proscribed."[73]

Thomas wrote the concurrence in Gonzales v. Carhart which upheld Congress' power to outlaw partial birth abortions.

In Stenberg v. Carhart, Thomas was in the minority supporting the constitutionality of outlawing "partial birth" abortion.[74] In his dissent, he wrote: "Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the Constitution dictates that a State must do so."[75] Thomas went on to excoriate the reasoning of the Casey and Stenberg majorities: "The majority’s insistence on a health exception is a fig leaf barely covering its hostility to any abortion regulation by the States -- a hostility that Casey purported to reject."[75]

Approach to oral arguments

Thomas is well-known for listening rather than asking questions during oral arguments of the Court. He has offered several reasons for this, including that he developed a habit of listening as a young man. Thomas comes from the Gullah/Geechee cultural region of coastal Georgia and is a member of this distinct African American ethnic group; he grew up speaking the Gullah language, which is a hybrid of English and various West African languages. Later in life, Thomas began to acquire an enthusiasm for his heritage, writing about it in the December 14, 2000 issue of The New York Times:

"When I was 16, I was sitting as the only black kid in my class, and I had grown up speaking a kind of a dialect. It's called Geechee. Some people call it [Gullah] now, and people praise it now. But they used to make fun of us back then. It's not standard English. When I transferred to an all-white school at a young age, I was self-conscious, like we all are... So I...just started developing the habit of listening."[76]

However, Jeffrey Toobin in The Nine calls into question Thomas's explanation, showing that Thomas knew how to speak English well from an early age, because he lived with his English-speaking grandfather from the age of six, attended only English-speaking parochial schools, and earned excellent school grades.[77] The New York Times also casts doubt on Thomas's Gullah explanation.[78]

Thomas has stated that he wishes to write a book about the Gullah culture.[79]

Another theory, asserted by one set of Thomas biographers, is that he believes oral arguments are mostly unnecessary, and that the back-and-forth in oral arguments is often disrespectful to the attorneys trying to present their cases. (This view has been supported by Ann Scarlett, Professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law, who was one of his law clerks.)[80] The same biographers also theorize Thomas is uncomfortable in the rapid pacing of oral argument discussions, the supposition being he prefers a more cerebral, quieter environment in which to carefully contemplate matters of constitutional law.[81]

In comments in November 2007, Thomas proffered his position on the subject: "My colleagues should shut up!" he said to an audience at Hillsdale College in Michigan. He later explained, "I don't think that for judging, and for what we are doing, all those questions are necessary", and compared his profession to the medical arts: "Suppose you're undergoing something very serious like surgery and the doctors started a practice of conducting seminars while in the operating room, debating each other about certain procedures and whether or not this procedure is this way or that way. You really didn't go in there to have a debate about gall bladder surgery."[82]

Though Thomas is silent during most arguments before the Supreme Court, he had, up until his 16th term, spoken a few times each term.[83] During the oral argument for NASA v. FLRA,[84] In Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), Thomas raised an issue which would become important in the opinions ("the distinction... between an element of the offense and an enhancement factor"). In Capitol Square Review Board v. Pinette[85] (1995), Virginia v. Black (2003), and Georgia v. Randolph (2006), Thomas presaged his eventual dissent with comments at oral argument.

Upon the conclusion of the 2006-2007 term of the Supreme Court, it was widely noted that Thomas had failed to utter a single word from the bench during the course of the entire term.[86] In November 2007, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, the Law Blog of the Wall Street Journal initiated the "When-Will-Justice-Thomas-Ask-a-Question Watch", noting that the justice had not asked a single question during oral arguments since February 22, 2006.[87] February 22, 2008, marked the two year anniversary of Thomas's last question during oral argument, a milestone which was noted by several media outlets, including CNN.[88] Another reference to his silence was made in the Boston Legal episode The Court Supreme where Denny Crane made a bet regarding whether Alan Shore could get the fictional Justice Thomas to talk.

Books authored

Thomas received a $1.5 million advance for writing his 2007 memoir, My Grandfather's Son.[20]

References

  1. ↑ Clarence Thomas bio from Notable Names Database
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/future/robes_thomas.html
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "The Holy Cross Fraternity", BusinessWeek (2007-03-12). Retrieved on 2008-10-19. 
  4. ↑ Pin Point on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Monica Dolin (2007-10-03). "Anger Still Fresh in Clarence Thomas' Memoir", ABC News. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. 
  6. ↑ The 2000 Election
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Merida K, Fletcher M, "Supreme Discomfort", Washington Post Magazine, August 4, 2002. Accessed May 7, 2007.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Clarence Thomas Speaks Out BusinessWeek
  9. ↑ Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas visits Conception Seminary College
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 David Margolick (1991-07-03). "Judge Portrayed as a Product Of Ideals Clashing With Life", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. 
  11. ↑ Linton Weeks (2007-02-21). "Ted Wells, Center Of the Defense", Washington Post. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. 
  12. ↑ Townhall.com::Talk Radio Online::Radio Show
  13. ↑ "From Clarence Thomas to Palin", Newsweek (2008-09-27). Retrieved on 2008-10-17. 
  14. ↑ Karen Tumulty (1991-07-07). "Court Path Started in the Ashes: A fire launched Clarence Thomas on a path toward fierce personal drive-but not before the Supreme Court nominee journeyed through anger, self-hatred, confusion and doubt.", Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 Jan Crawford Greenburg (2007-09-30). "Clarence Thomas: A Silent Justice Speaks Out: Part VII: 'Traitorous' Adversaries: Anita Hill and the Senate Democrats", ABC News. Retrieved on 2008-10-18. 
  16. ↑ Religious affiliation of Supreme Court justices Justice Sherman Minton converted to Catholicism after his retirement.
  17. ↑ Washington Post
  18. ↑ Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: Did Clarence Thomas just say he's not Catholic?
  19. ↑ The religion of Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Robert Barnes, Michael A. Fletcher and Kevin Merida (2007-09-29). "Justice Thomas Lashes Out in Memoir", The Washington Post. Retrieved on 2008-10-20. 
  21. ↑ NYT Chronicle Article, 5/30/94
  22. ↑ Columbus Telegram
  23. ↑ Rush Limbaugh, Rush Recounts His Trip to Lincoln, www.rushlimbaugh.com, September 17, 2007.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 24.3 24.4 24.5 24.6 cite news | title = Clarence Thomas: A Silent Justice Speaks Out | author = Jan Crawford Greenburg | publisher = ABC News | date = 2007-09-30 | url = http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3664944&page=1 | accessdate = 2008-10-18 }}
  25. ↑ New York Times
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 30.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 25.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 28.3 28.4 28.5 Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 31.
  29. ↑ http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/justices/nopriorexp.html
  30. ↑ Tinsley E. Yarbrough (2005). "David Hackett Souter: Traditional Republican on the Rehnquist Court". Oxford University Press. Retrieved on 2008-06-27.
  31. ↑ It is routine for nominees, at all levels of the Federal judiciary, to refuse to discuss cases during their confirmation hearings that might come before them if they are confirmed. Clinton appointed Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer, who both refused to discuss Roe before the Judiciary Committee, even though Ginsburg has worked for years for the ACLU defending it. Despite this nearly universal refusal of nominees to discuss hot button issues such as Roe, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee nearly always try to draw the nominee's view out during confirmation hearings.
  32. ↑ Wall Street Journal
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new-yitna?id=UsaThom&images=images/modeng&data=/lv6/workspace/yitna&tag=public&part=3
  34. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 5.
  35. ↑ Opening Statement: Sexual Harassment Hearings Concerning Judge Clarence Thomas," Women's Speeches from Around the World.
  36. ↑ http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh102-1084pt4/browse.html
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 Lacayo, Richard (2001-06-24). "The Unheard Witnesses", TIME. Retrieved on 2008-09-18. 
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 38.2 "United States Senate, Transcript of Proceedings" (pdf) pp. 442-511. gpoaccess.gov (1991-10-10). Retrieved on 2008-09-18.
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 "United States Senate, Transcript of Proceedings" (pdf) pp. 512–559. gpoaccess.gov (1991-10-10). Retrieved on 2008-09-18.
  40. ↑ http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh102-1084pt4/512-559.pdf
  41. ↑ http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh102-1084pt4/1022-1024.pdf
  42. ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100201822.html
  43. ↑ http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1896
  44. ↑ http://hnn.us/comments/121846.html
  45. ↑ Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, October 11, 1991.
  46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 39.
  47. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Pages 38-39.
  48. ↑ Hall, Kermit (ed), The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, page 871, Oxford Press, 1992
  49. ↑ Packwood himself would later be forced to resign from the Senate in the face accusations of sexual harassment, abuse and assault by numerous former staffers and lobbyists.
  50. ↑ Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Page 112.
  51. ↑ Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Pages 112-113.
  52. ↑ Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Page 115.
  53. ↑ Jan Crawford Greenburg (2007-01-28). "The Truth About Clarence Thomas", The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. 
  54. ↑ Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Pages 115-116.
  55. ↑ Kauffman B., "Clarence Thomas", Reason Magazine, November 1987, Accessed May 7, 2007.
  56. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 116.
  57. ↑ http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2005/2005_04_623/ideology/#opinions
  58. ↑ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/27/60minutes/main3305443.shtml
  59. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/01/entertainment/et-book1
  60. ↑ Greenhouse, Linda."In Steps Big and Small, Supreme Court Moved Right", New York Times, July 1, 2007.
  61. ↑ Greenhouse, Linda. "In Steps Big and Small, Supreme Court, Moved Right", The New York Times, July 1, 2007.
  62. ↑ Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Page 166.
  63. ↑ 63.0 63.1 "A Big Question About Clarence Thomas", The Washington Post, October 14, 2004. Accessed May 7, 2007.
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 120.
  65. ↑ 65.0 65.1 65.2 Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 117.
  66. ↑ Volokh, Eugene. How the Justices Voted in Free Speech Cases, 1994-2002, UCLA Law
  67. ↑ Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Supreme Court Syllabus, pg. 4., point 4.
  68. ↑ 68.0 68.1 Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Page 117.
  69. ↑ 69.0 69.1 Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Page 119.
  70. ↑ 70.0 70.1 Greenburg, Jan Crawford. Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court.2007. Penguin Books. Page 123.
  71. ↑ 71.0 71.1 Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 126.
  72. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 264.
  73. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 68.
  74. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey. The Nine. First Anchor Books Edition, September 2008. Page 158.
  75. ↑ 75.0 75.1 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-830.ZD3.html
  76. ↑ Linguistics
  77. ↑ Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine. Page 106. 2007. Doubleday. ISBN 0385516401.
  78. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/books/review/Patterson-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin
  79. ↑ Gullah
  80. ↑ This information was related in a 2006 conversation with law student Daren Rich, when asked why Justice Thomas was often silent during oral arguments.
  81. ↑ Blog
  82. ↑ U.S. News & World Report
  83. ↑ New York Times
  84. ↑ 527 U.S. 229 (1999)
  85. ↑ 515 U.S. 753
  86. ↑ Law.com
  87. ↑ Wall Street Journal Law Blog
  88. ↑ CNN article on lack of questions for 2 years

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Seal of the U.S. Supreme Court
Persondata
NAME Thomas, Clarence
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American jurist and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Pin Point, Georgia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH