Paper Calls Clarence Thomas 'Black Man with an Asterisk'

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Written nothing? He's authored ~100 Supreme Court opinions, including ~50 majority opinions, while serving on the bench. You must be a supremely accomplished individual to call that 'nothing'. Please share with us all your legal accomplishments (and posting trollish trash on the internet definitely doesn't count).

In all fairness, his opinions are uniquely vacuous, and he has always shown a near-complete dearth of original thought.

My own legal accomplishments certainly don't include authoring opinions for the Supreme Court - I have only been a lawyer for about 7 years - but I have litigated 30 or so civil and criminal trials, including one prosecution in which I sent a child molester to prison for life.

Clarence Thomas is, frankly, a dreadful associate justice, and it's even sadder in that he replaced one of the most brilliant civil-rights lawyers in America (Thurgood Marshall was actually the prevailing attorney in Brown v. Board of Education). Justice Thomas' nomination was clear tokenism, and he is, in that respect, a bit of a tragic figure.

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: DonVito

Originally posted by: Mursilis

Written nothing? He's authored ~100 Supreme Court opinions, including ~50 majority opinions, while serving on the bench. You must be a supremely accomplished individual to call that 'nothing'. Please share with us all your legal accomplishments (and posting trollish trash on the internet definitely doesn't count).

In all fairness, his opinions are uniquely vacuous, and he has always shown a near-complete dearth of original thought.

Clarence Thomas is, frankly, a dreadful associate justice, and it's even sadder in that he replaced one of the most brilliant civil-rights lawyers in America (Thurgood Marshall was actually the prevailing attorney in Brown v. Board of Education). Justice Thomas' nomination was clear tokenism, and he is, in that respect, a bit of a tragic figure.

All of which is merely your opinion, and I guess you're welcome to it. Nevertheless, I find 'original thought' to be highly overrated. Certainly, a lot of activist jurists have engaged in very 'original thought' in stretching the Constitution to protect or not protect (based on how some members of the Court have dangerously narrowed the First Amendment in the name of so-called 'campaign finance reform') their pet issues. In those cases, I'd prefer non-original thought, thanks.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: Mursilis

All of which is merely your opinion, and I guess you're welcome to it. Nevertheless, I find 'original thought' to be highly overrated. Certainly, a lot of activist jurists have engaged in very 'original thought' in stretching the Constitution to protect or not protect (based on how some members of the Court have dangerously narrowed the First Amendment in the name of so-called 'campaign finance reform') their pet issues. In those cases, I'd prefer non-original thought, thanks.

You're going to get it regardless.

I've always found Justice Scalia's opinions darkly entertaining, in that he engages in endless, elaborate machinations to support the conclusion he's trying to reach, then reaches back to find what he claims is textual support in the Constitution for his position. He is no more a textualist/originalist than any liberal justice, yet he's managed to pull the wool over the public's eyes for years.