american justice
I’ve sometimes heard that with respect to public figures, the established stereotype is far from how they actually are as a person. In American politics, there are few people as polarizing as Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. Just mentioning his name may make you think of what you think about him. It certainly does to me. Liberals hate him. Many African Americans misunderstand him. But who is he?
Thomas recently wrote his memoirs titled My Grandfather’s Son, and also recently sat down for a fascinating interview with 60 Minutes. This is possibly his first interview of this depth he’s given since the U.S. Senate approved him to the Supreme Court.
He discusses many aspects of his life, including time spent studying at a Roman Catholic seminary. He later left the seminary due to how he perceived the school’s indifference to civil rights issues, but came back to his faith later in as an adult. I wish they had spent more time on this, but with so many other topics to consider in his life, it’s understandable.
I won’t spoil the rest of the interview, but it is an intriguing look at someone that so many carry opinions about, but few actually know. Regardless of how you feel about him, you will be better informed for watching this. See for yourself, and tell me what you think after watching it.
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I find Justice Thomas’s dedication to originalism both frustrating but also comforting. I’m not sure how I feel about his total opposition to scare decisis, and I really find his opinion on US v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative pretty ridiculous given his desire to give power to states on such issues rather than the federal government.
Anita Hill is a ridiculous big bag of worms, and I have a lot of mixed feelings on that. No solid evidence could be produced, however, so I say let it lie.
I admire his very firm position on freedom of speech, and he has always seemed fair on the issue of search and seizure.
I will say that his dissenting opinion in the “illegal enemy combatant” cases most recently (Hamdi and Hanran or something like that) seemed steeped less in actual law and more in a “let’s trust the executive branch,” state of mind.
That last one is the only place where I’ve ever had solid issues with him.
oops. Italics tags. Dang.
What did you think of the interview?
It was enlightening on the level that understanding his upbringing and relationship with his father (hence the name of his book) helped me understand a bit about his alignment with the executive branch, which is something that has baffled me.
But knowing about any one of our justices on a personal level doesn’t do much for me besides serve as a reminder that they are people, too, under those robes.
I will say that I have little to no sympathy for people who are “lynched” or lambasted by the media. That is simply state of the media at this point, and one has to A) give them nothing to latch onto and B) be ready to formulate a carefully worded, non-volatile, but totally castrating response when they find something on which they might nail you.
I can appreciate the issue on the level of a tragedy. It is always a tragedy when a great mind is impaired by the media circus. I have no moral suppositions, however, about how someone may or may not have “deserved” what came to them regarding media negativity or even outright lies.
Scare decisis? You may have coined a nice little term there. I’ll give it a definition: The lack of moral courage needed to overturn a bad holding.
Kyle,
I commented on your thoughts on worldview.
Hah! typo. I obviously meant stare, not scare.
The United States is a common law legal system, Civis, which therefore means that it should draw abstract rules from specific cases. This is why stare decisis is valid (when used appropriately) in the USA, but not, say, France, where their legal system follows civil law, deciding specific cases based on abstract laws. In the USA, the egg comes from the chicken, not the other way round.
There are certainly judges that will use stare decisis to avoid tough decisions, but the use of precedent (where there is precedent) is a big part of what keeps our legal system so alive and vital. In most civil law systems, cases are often decided long before they hit court (because the rules are already set and there is no room for precedent to change further rulings). In Common Law systems, however, new precedents can be set, allowing judges to interpret, refine, and even create law. Stare Decisis goes forward and backward, allowing judges’ decisions to shape the law, given that they are actually following previous precedents (though in some cases judges may overturn precedent).
Furthermore, stare decisis specifically avoids moral entanglements as to the why and how of a decision and focuses only on the “what.” Such is not the same for civil law systems.
Not dictus; not rationibus decedendi; but decisis.
Hey guys, What interested me so much about this interview is it really questions the validity of what the dominant narrative has been about Clarence Thomas all these years. Like him or not, he brings up big questions about faith and race in our country. Is there an expectation that blacks should feel the same way on issues in order to be black “enough”? Jesse Jackson raised that charge against Obama earlier this year, he wasn’t black enough. Why is Clarence Thomas so targeted? How did your opinion of him change or not change as a result of this interview?
Kyle,
I’m impressed. I don’t have a problem with following precedent even when it involves bad law, unless it is really bad law. I just thought you coined a neat phrase.
What do you mean when you write: “Many African Americans misunderstand him”?
Do European Americans or Asian Americans understand him better than African Americans?
Hah! That’s a good point, storbakken. It’s like by saying “many African-Americans misunderstand him,” it’s sort of doing the exact thing Justice Thomas speaks out against in his interview.
Hey Storbakken,
Because of the racial component of our society, it is correct, commonly understood as well as relevant (to his individual perceived stereotype) that many African Americans misunderstand Justice Thomas. This is merely a restatement of a common observation.
I offer no comment about folks of any other ethnic backgrounds understanding him or not, so inferring a viewpoint where I did not state one is problematic.
Hi Jim,
All I’m saying is that it is disconcerting to see third parties become involved and presume to speak collectively for minority groups. It is precisely this collectivist mindset that tends to be at the heart of racism.
I reread my last comment and find it to come off a bit edgy. I apologize for that. It’s just that when you say that many people of one race misunderstand a person/issue (and you do not belong to that group, nor live in that community), you are prone to offend those people.
Storbakken!
No sweat. I initially questioned whether to say that, but ultimately felt fine with it b/c it is commonly understood, and I didn’t feel like I was charting new territory. Otherwise, I would have had the same aversions.