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Is Justice Thomas ‘A Little Tired’ of His Job?
(He has hired his clerks. Who are they?)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 10:45 AM - By David Lat

Clarence Thomas portrait Justice Clarence Thomas.jpgIn today’s Morning Docket, we linked to an interesting article, by Adam Liptak of the New York Times, concerning a recent public appearance by Justice Clarence Thomas before a group of high school essay contest winners. The WSJ Law Blog collects a number of fun tidbits — such as Justice Thomas’s declaration that “the dishwasher is a miracle,” and his weakness for Saving Private Ryan.

This passage caught our eye:

“I am rounding the last turn for my 18th term on the court,” [Justice Thomas] added, but his work — “this endeavor,” he called it, “or, for some, an ordeal” — has not gotten easier.

“That’s one thing about this job,” he said. “You get a little tired.”

So does this mean that Justice Thomas might retire? CT is usually silent on the bench; he doesn’t seem to enjoy the intellectual combat of oral argument, a la Justices Scalia or Breyer. One wonders whether he might be happier driving around in his RV, which is how he passes his summers, than hanging out at One First Street, cranking out opinions.

But don’t expect CT to step down anytime soon. He’s still just 60 years old — he turns 61 on June 23 — which makes him a spring chicken by SCOTUS standards. He sees his service on the Court as a great honor and civic calling, as he explained in his superb memoir, My Grandfather’s Son. He’s also quite good at his job: no matter what Senator Harry Reid might say, Justice Thomas is widely regarded as a fine craftsman of judicial opinions (including many in highly technical statutory fields).

Oh, and Justice Thomas has hired clerks for October Term 2009. Now, clerk hiring evidence is not conclusive; some justices warn their hires that they might retire at any time. But since it would be cruel and unusual punishment to bestow a SCOTUS clerkship on someone and then take it away, hiring clerks is certainly suggestive of an intention to stay (just like bulk conference room reservations, by the “Office of Attorney Development,” are circumstantial evidence of looming lawyer layoffs).

More on the subject of Supreme Court clerk hiring, after the jump.

We hear that Justice Thomas — like all nine justices, with the possible exception of Justice Souter — has completed his clerk hiring for the upcoming Term. But as you can see from our last SCOTUS clerk hiring round-up, we’re still missing two of CT’s clerks for OT 2009.

If you know the names of the missing Thomas clerks, or have law school or prior clerkship information about them, please email us (subject line: “Supreme Court clerk hiring”). We’re going to find out their names in a few weeks anyway, when the Court’s Public Information Office releases the full list, so it’s not clear why people are being so cagey about this info.

Also, if you can shed more light on the mystery of the missing Souter clerks, please email us. Thanks.

Update: Congratulations to Brian Morrissey (Notre Dame 2007 / O’Scannlain), currently an associate at Covington & Burling — and, like your above-signed writer, a former law clerk to Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain (9th Cir.). In the upcoming Term, Judge O’Scannlain will have three former clerks serving on the Court: Brian Morrissey and Marah Stith, in Justice Thomas’s chambers, and Daniel Sullivan, in Justice Scalia’s chambers.

Further Update: Congratulations also to Tyler R. Green (Utah 2005 / McConnell / Cassell), currently an associate at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.

Reticent Justice Opens Up to a Group of Students [New York Times]
Justice Thomas on Dishwashers: ‘What a Device!’ [WSJ Law Blog]

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Posted in: Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Clerks

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