I admire Justice Thomas.
He goes on to say that he agrees that the circumstances warrant a conviction on Felon in possession of a gun, but that the wrongly decided Johnson vs USA bound his hands. Since Johnson was ruled wrongly, he is bound by that ruling, and therefore he is left with interpreting the criminals acts as unintentionals.
So if Johnson vs USA had been ruled correctly, then Thomas would have upheld the conviction. Pretty interesting.
I admire Thomas, I do not admire strict adherence to precedent; precedents can be wrong and should be no more binding on any sitting SOTUS than is legislation passed by a previous Congress binding on a sitting Congress that sees what is “right” is something that undoes that prior legislation.
Each SOTUS should see itself as a new SOTUS, not a “continuation” of any prior SOTUS, except wherein the sitting SOTUS chooses by its own reasoning to agree with any prior SOTUS ruling; but NOT out of any fidelity to any prior SOTUS.
Instead of seeing the federal institutions being permanent in construction I think they should only be seen as permanent in design, with each new Congress, each new President, each new SOTUS recognized as a new “government” by design of the Constitution. I believe the design of the Constitution was for a permanent revolution by the manner of renewal by the choice of the people, and the choices their elected representatives can make. I believe in only fidelity to the Constitution, not the prior acts of Constitutionally organized prior office holders.
Thomas is intellectually honest, some of the others are intellectually challenged.