Justice Clarence Thomas believes silence is golden-hasn’t uttered a syllable for years

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It has long been suspected that the high court’s greatest weakness was Clarence Thomas.  He is known more for the stormy confirmation hearings where he was accused of sexual harassment than he is for his judicial brilliance.  The fact that the guy hasn’t spoken a word from the bench in years speaks volumes.  Here is the summary from Newser:

It is a strange anniversary coming up for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—on Feb. 22, it will have been five years since the justice has spoken during a court argument. The other justices average between six questions or remarks a case (Alito) and 25 (Scalia), and no other justice in 40 years has gone a term without speaking at least once during arguments. Thomas has given different reasons for his extended silence, from being self-conscious about his southern dialect to politeness, but he remains a mystery, reports the New York Times.

Ironically, Thomas is considered friendly in private, speaking frequently with students at smaller, regional schools, preferring to talk movies to legal theory (Saving Private Ryan is a favorite). When Thomas has spoken in the past, his questions could be influential, such as in a 2002 case about cross burning in Virginia. “This was a reign of terror, and the cross was a symbol of that reign of terror,” he said. “It was intended to cause fear and to terrorize a population.” But for some, his silence is deafening: “If Justice Thomas holds a strong view of the law in a case, he should offer it,” wrote one journalist in a law review.

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13 years ago

Withholding commentary out of politeness I can see; to not ask questions that would be potentially relevant to a proper legal analysis, though, seems more along the lines of negligent. This was a truly unfortunate court appointment.

13 years ago

INEXCUSABLE! The Supreme Court is the top of the legal system and the Justices are defining court cases and in a sense, the tone of the American Judicial System.

You cannot have someone that is not participating in the process, just filling a seat to vote conservative.

He must state his reasons and opinions and he must form his legal decisions by putting forth questions to both sides of the case. Anything less diminishes his role and exposes his incompetence.

13 years ago

He is kind of an oddball. When the confirmation hearings were going down Anita Bryant was at my law school. I was supposed to have her for Contracts, but she was on sabbatical and transitioning to U of California. All of my conservative classmates, who outnumbered as liberals, hated her guts, I suppose because they just assumed she was lying about the pube on the Coke can. I heard her speak a few times; a true intellectual. She didn’t strike me as the kind of person that would make something up, out of whole cloth, involving anything as scandalous as a short and curly on a can.

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