Posted on 02/29/2016 12:35:12 PM PST by Kaslin
With the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, it seems as if Clarence Thomas feels compelled to fill the void left by the outspoken Originalist. Prior to Justice Alito's confirmation, Justice Thomas and Scalia constituted the core of the conservative win on the Court. Adam Liptak of The New York Times reported that Thomas has remained silent since a 2006 case involving the death penalty. Liptak added that Thomas is self-conscious about his southern dialect, but added that his silence is also part of his personality; Thomas wrote in his memoir that he was quiet as an undergraduate and a law school student. But not today–he finally asked some questions in a domestic abuse case:
Breaking a decade-long silence, Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday asked several questions from the Supreme Court bench. He spoke just weeks after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, whose empty seat next to Justice Thomas's remains draped in black.
It was hard to escape the conclusion that the absence of the voluble Justice Scalia, who had dominated Supreme Court arguments, somehow liberated Justice Thomas and allowed him to resume participating in the court's most public activity.
The questions came in a minor case on domestic violence convictions and gun rights. Justice Thomas, according to the few reporters in the courtroom, asked a question about whether such convictions suspend a constitutional right.
SCOTUSblog had a rundown of that case called Voisine v. United States that once again deals with domestic abuse charges and the forfeiture of one's Second Amendment rights:
Whether a prior conviction for a "reckless" domestic assault qualifies as a federal "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" is, for defendants in the thirty-four states that have reckless assault statutes, not an unimportant question. Such a conviction leads to a ban on firearms possession under federal law and raises the possibility of a ten-year sentence for those who violate that prohibition. But the convoluted path through statutory and common-law precedents required to answer the question is somewhat of a snoozer.
[…]
Let's start with the undisputed facts. The cases of Stephen Voisine and William Armstrong have been consolidated for this argument, but are otherwise unrelated. Both men pled guilty, on different occasions, in Maine's state courts to different misdemeanor assaults on their domestic partners (girlfriend and wife, respectively). Some years later, they were each found in possession of a firearm - six guns in Armstrong's case, during a search of his home for drug distribution; and a rifle in Voisine's case after he shot a bald eagle.
Charged with the federal offense of "domestic abuser in possession" (my words, not the statute's), both men lost motions to dismiss the charges, based on the same argument: that their prior assault convictions did not meet the definition of "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" because the applicable Maine statute broadly permits a conviction for "intentional, knowing, or reckless" assaults and their indictments did not specify which type of intent they actually had. Both men then pled guilty conditionally (meaning that they preserved their legal argument for appeal) to the federal charge of possessing a firearm after their prior domestic violence convictions. The First Circuit affirmed.
! BOO !
!Yahhhhhhhhh !
I salute you, Judge Thomas. Thank you!
I looked at the ‘facebook’ “trending” piece on this. WOW! There really are some nasty pieces of work out there in lalalib world. Looked to me like Justice Thomas made a very valid point with his question.
Ultimately...if you can take my weapon away from me well, you can take away the “someone else’s” printing press / PHONE AND PEN / internet access.
Ne’cest pas?
Absolutely...The originalist mantle has been passed.
What gives me confidence is that C. Thomas recognizes EXACTLY what has happened with the passing of Alito.
HISTORY shall out!
I fully believe that SCOTUS-Judge C. Thomas understands and believes this; this is why he has become “vocal” since the passing of Alito.
this is why he has become “vocal” since the passing of Alito.
Well, then he must still be silent, because Alito is still on this side of the River Styx...
Excellent point
The rats hated Justice Scalia, so it’s no surprise that the racist rate hate Justice Thomas
Mais oui!
IF liberals are all about celebrating diversity and all that, and like to see members of minority groups achieve high positions, then why the did liberals seek to destroy Judge Thomas when he was nominated to the Supreme Court? Why wasn’t that racist and bigoted of them to try to destroy a black man, if we’re supposed to revere members of minority populations????
If Chris Rock really wanted to flip off the line last night he would have brought out Justice Thomas instead of Stacy Dash as the “token black on stage.” Would have been totally worth seeing their heads explode. Funny enough as it was.
But as you know it’s not about being black. It’s about being the right kind of black.
It was racist and bigoted from them. They can not deny that they are the racist and the bigots no matter how hard they try
JUSTICE BREYER: Stop you at the first point. Your argument on the first point is that she did not raise the constitutional question. She said in order to avoid a constitutional question, we should decide it in thus such and such a way.
So one answer would be, well, maybe so. We aren't facing the constitutional question. We are simply facing the question of what Congress intended. And if this does raise a constitutional question, so be it. And then there will, in a future case, come up with that question. So we or our point is, we don't have to decide that here.
So, in order to avoid having to actually follow the Constitution, they'll punt, and force someone to spend the years that it takes to get yet another case to the court.
Didn't you hear Rush? They don't sit down and try to change each other's minds.
Remember who Thomas was replacing. And that libs are LIBS first.
The court is sometimes completely irresponsible in cases like this. How many millions of dollars have to be spent, and how many years do we have to wait until they finally make a decision on the point Justice Thomas brought up?
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