Is Justice Thomas ‘A Little Tired’ of His Job?
(He has hired his clerks. Who are they?)
In 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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Comments
1
First to say Scalia rules!
"But don't expect CT is step down anytime soon."
Nice.
Sure, Lat, Thomas is regarded as a "fine craftsman of opinions." Anywhere outside of right-wing circles, nope. A joke of a justice.
One of his unnamed clerks is an alum of Creighton.
Two Lat posts in a row? Has tubby retired, been fired, or killed himself?
"But don't expect CT is step down anytime soon."
Now, if this were an Elie post, people would be jumping up and down screaming about what an incompetent he is. But since it's Lat, and a kiss-up to a conservative jurist, I'm willing to bet that the grammar Nazis are relatively silent on this one.
Man, I wish I were in Washington. I've been in Juneau Alaska, of all places, for two days conducting client interviews. The food here is godawful, and I'm really craving something remotely appetizing. Does anyone know of any restaurants in Juneau that serve something other than walrus?
--Jonesing in Juneau
The court's docket has shrunk considerably over the last few decades and this whiny fraud still has to complain.
At least Lat fixes his typos immediately. That error has been corrected already.
"Justice Thomas is widely regarded as a fine craftsman of judicial opinions (including many in highly technical statutory fields)."
What a fucking unsourced lie.
I understand that Justice Thomas has hired John Yoo and David Addington as his clerks for October 2009.
Here is a good defense of Justice Thomas:
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2005/review_presser_janfeb05.msp
"Ever since he was confirmed in 1991, by a 52-to-48 vote, Clarence Thomas has been determined to outlive his critics, not just by serving longer on the court, but by becoming, through solid historical work, a respected force. Nothing has shaken him from that goal...."
"Thomas is emerging as a powerful voice on the Court. His writings are stated so clearly that any citizen can understand them. His logic is powerful. His research impeccable. And now his influence with his colleagues is steadily increasing."
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NVWeyrich997.html
Justice Tom, if you don't understand the text of the Bill of Rights you need to retire or be impeached.
That dishwasher is looking at me funny. I'm scared.
J.T.
To # 11 -- he certainly has influence with Scalia. It seems Scalia is constantly copying Thomas' reasoning and joining Thomas in his decisions.
When I think of Justice Thomas's favorite movies, I think more of "Saving Ryan's Privates" than "Saving Private Ryan."
Uncle Clarence, can you stop putting your gray pubes on my coke cans. The joke wasn't that funny in 80s and it isn't funny in 2009.
Lat, you fruity little bastard, it's good to see you posting more often. Come back full-time.
CT has written some very solid ERISA opinions.
When CT said "dishwasher" -- was he referring to the black guy that washes his dishes?
Whenever I hear Thomas speak in public he sounds like a moron. I have a problem believing he writes his own opinions.
14 -- a Washington Times column from Paul Weyrich?! My god.
Is it so hard to type "Thomas" instead of CT?
I am not comfortable around that dishwasher.
23 = racist
Justice Thomas is widely regarded as a fine craftsman of judicial opinions (including many in highly technical statutory fields).
I'm glad you said this LAT.
People blindly criticize CT's opinions having never paid attention to them, while simultaneously praising Scalia for his brilliance. Anyone who has seriously read their opinions understands that CT takes clear and predictable decisions based on his ideology and well articulated form of statutory interpretation. I completely disagree with nearly every CT opinion, but he is at least logically consistent.
Scalia, on the other hand, is the better writer, but logically his opinions are logically inconsistent. He is completely erratic and will abandon his own method of interpretation whenever it doesn't comport with his ideology.
We should ask ourselves what's driving this blind criticism of Thomas?
25 = hater
CT 4 lyfe
11 here. I said I had a hard time believing, as Lat writes, that Thomas "is widely regarded as a fine craftsman of judicial opinions." To refute what I wrote, someone posted a link to a Legal Affairs article which begins: "FEW IN THE LEGAL ACADEMY HAVE HAD GOOD THINGS TO SAY about Clarence Thomas or about his jurisprudence."
Which proves my point.
Is it racist to think that CT looks like a well educated African American?
My favorite J.T. Dissent is short and to the point:
I join Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion. I write separately to note that the law before the Court today “is … uncommonly silly.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 527 (1965) (Stewart, J., dissenting). If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources.
Notwithstanding this, I recognize that as a member of this Court I am not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated. My duty, rather, is to “decide cases ‘agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.’ ” Id., at 530. And, just like Justice Stewart, I “can find [neither in the Bill of Rights nor any other part of the Constitution a] general right of privacy,” ibid., or as the Court terms it today, the “liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions,” ante, at 1.
I think SCT Justices should be offered a year off at 1/3 pay like at Skadden. See the world, not just Federalist Society conferences (or their liberal equivalents).
OMG! Which firm is reserving conference rooms in bulk?! Don't tease us, Lat! Is it Kirkland!?! Shiny new conferences rooms in their fancy new building?
28 - true, but if he goes over a page or two, his opinions tend to be convoluted.
Justice Thomas saying his job makes him tired is not the same thing as saying he's tired of his job.
Come on, he's around for a while yet.
14 - CT's opinions "are stated so clearly that any citizen can understand them" because if his clerks wrote them to be any more complex, CT would not understand them.
CT is a joke and an embarressment to the legal profession generally.
I've got a Bill of Responsibilities for you CT...retire. You're extremely out of touch with mainstream American legal opinion. And you hate Native Americans to boot.
Jerk.
shaving ryan's privates
-anita
he's still better looking than ruthy ginsberg
I don't see how the ability to speak well in public has much to do with the ability to craft a fine and well reasoned opinion.
Additionally, it is well known that CT has always been self-conscious about public speaking. He grew up speaking the Geechee dialect, which is highly Africanized and gave him "funny" sounding speech patterns. Sure, he doesn't still sound just like he did when he was 15 years old, but he still isn't fully comfortable with public speaking.
Is it possible that CT is aware of the major changes in the porn industry that the internet age has caused, and regrets that his demanding job has kept him from staying truly up-to-speed? This may make early retirement all the more appealing.
Thomas is underrated.
Scalia's hyperbole weakens his analysis.
Souter smells like lemon drops.
It's a rich tapestry.
bloody hell get some law firm news today.
11/30
Way to show off your intellectual guns buddy; you obviously didn't read the article. The whole point of which is that the conventional wisdom about CT is little more than stereotyping, hate, and small-minded rumoring. Instead of the article "proving" your point, you proved that you are exactly one of those that the article was critiquing. The irony is so heavy I can't even breathe in here.
11/30
Way to show off your intellectual guns buddy; you obviously didn't read the article. The whole point of which is that the conventional wisdom about CT is little more than stereotyping, hate, and small-minded rumoring. Instead of the article "proving" your point, you proved that you are exactly one of those that the article was critiquing. The irony is so heavy I can't even breathe in here.
18, 42 - Those are seriously two of the stupidest jokes I've ever read. I'm not knee-jerking; in fact I really don't like CT.
This post passes over the most bizarre statement in the article, CT's claim that he is uncomfortable with the idea of rights. I mean the dishwasher comment is quirky and all. But defining and applying rights is sort of a big part of his job.
I don't have an axe to grind against Thomas. He's clearly got personal issues, but by and large, I respect his legal opinions. I just can't quite understand how he can do his job, or why he would want to, if heisn't comfortable with constitutional (and statutory) rights.
33, they already get summers off just like students do, and sycophants pay for them to do things like "teach" in Austria....
Side Note: CT is at the University of Minnesota Law School today and tomorrow. Maybe some douche will Q+A him on this.
49, I was at that program in Austria, it was awesome. So shut the fuck up.
I don't get the whole "I'm in X, does anyone know a good restaurant, dry cleaner, etc." flame. What's the point? What does the poster get out of it?
Tubs doesn't roll in before noon anymore!
46--my point was that Thomas is NOT widely respected. Whether some tortured argument can made that he doesn't suck isn't relevant to that point; the question is whether he's perceived to suck, which he is. You also make my point for me by writing that the "conventional wisdom" is that he's a dumbass. What does any of that have to do with "stereotyping and hate", unless you're making a veiled attempt to play the race card?
What's up, Toats McGoats?
Justice Slappapotomus
SCROTUS. Heh.
Wait, is that "SCOTUS"? My bad.
fine craftsman of *throws up*
Dumbest (or most uninformed) comments generally made about Supreme Court opinions: Certain justices are "good" writers, reflecting their brilliance and others are not, reflecting that they are dumb. Has anyone heard of Supreme Court clerks? Were you aware that they draft opinions? Or is that somehow eluding people? Yes, Justice Scalia adds some Scalia-isms to his opinions, but the core of virtually every Supreme Court opinion written by the current court is written by a clerk. So the logical consistency between various opinions of a justice, which actually reflect his review of opinions, is far more meaningful than whether you like or dislike the phrasing or grammar or whatever it is that people mean to criticize or applaud when they talk about good "writing" (as distinguished from logical coherent jurisprudence on the whole . . .). Statements like Harry Reid's that some great number of Justice Thomas's opinions are "poorly written" reflect not just racism and politics, but also a lack of understanding of how opinions get drafted at the Court. Ironic, given that I would hope a staffer drafted Harry Reid's moronic comments and that they don't reflect the depth of his own thinking.
58: "but the core of virtually every Supreme Court opinion written by the current court is written by a clerk"
This is wrong on a number of levels. First, Justice Stevens writes the first draft of his opinions. Second, the justices overwhelmingly inject personal style into their opinions. How else do you think that a justice's opinions look remarkably consistent, not just in a single term with four clerks, but over decades? The justices imbue their own logic into the opinions. It's not like they just "add some -isms" to an opinion.
Dumbest justice ever in the history of dumb justices.
Scalia sounds smart in person, Thomas doesn't.
58 - AS edits so heavily that, by the end of the process, they are all HIS opinions. It's not just a matter of adding a few flourishes here and there.
(I can't speak about the other justices, but I have heard that JPS also does his own drafting / edits heavily.)
That was fast. Looks like Lat found one of the missing CT clerks:
"Update: Congratulations to Brian Morrissey, 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."
Four UVA grads clerking this coming term! Congrats to all!
dope last name, brian.
HUGE for notre dame
Notre Dame is actually pretty good about sending clerks to SCOTUS. The #1 graduate or the EIC of the law review is often taken by Scalia.
And the second missing CT clerk:
"Further Update: Congratulations also to Tyler R. Green (Utah 2005 / McConnell / Cassell), currently an associate at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher."
Clarence TTThomas.
Brian was one of the nicest guys at Notre Dame. Couldn't have happened to a better guy. Congrats!
Brian was EIC of ND Law Review and a great guy.
Brian was also the inspiration for an above-average bowling team.
No higher compliment could be paid to him.
Brian is a sweetheart and definitely deserves this! I'm glad nice guys don't finish last for a change...
Justice Thomas writes nice dissents when the subject matter is the congressional abuse of the Commerce Clause. For the other matters . . . he should retire.
CONGRATS BRIAN!!!
Couldn't have happened to a better person.
CT just needs to hang on for 4 or 8 more years. Whenever the next time is that we don't have a communist as president.
59 and 62 - 58 here. You're entitled to your opinion. I don't dispute that in big cases they all influence the opinion heavily. If you want to really see how they write, you can probably do it pretty well by going to read the opinions (esp. dissents) that clearly mean the most to them. But as a general rule, these statements that even JPS or AS write their opinions are exaggerated.
Yay Brian!
Seriously smart, seriously funny, and seriously one of the nicest people around. Congrats!!!!
74 wins. I agree with Thomas that the court should confess that it f**cked up on the Commerce Clause, reel the law back a century or so, and start over. Besides that, he's a warm, dependably conservative body to fill a bench and watch porn.
Am I the only one who thinks that Brian is a douche?
You are the only one.
80 must have his Brians confused. The class of '07 was lousy with Brians.
religious right stick together. granted, notre dame is a good school. but not THAT good to send students to SCOTUS. other, better (nonreligious) schools have a hard time doing the same.
What the hell is SCOTUS?
83 - agreed. LAT clerked for the same judge, went to yale law, and is conservative. BUT is also g*y. add them up = no SCOTUS clerkship. makes you wonder.
83 = degree jockey
clarence is to scalia what thurgood was to brennan
87 = racist
85 - It does. Lat had a few SCOTUS interviews - I wonder if the justices detected his sexual orientation.
89 - i'm sure of it. sadly, most of the older folk, especially the conservative ones, are not too cool with the g*ys. no matter how smart they may be.