Posted on 02/25/2008 2:27:59 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Two years and 144 cases have passed since Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last spoke up at oral arguments. It is a period of unbroken silence that contrasts with the rest of the court's unceasing inquiries.
Hardly a case goes by, including two appeals that were argued Monday, without eight justices peppering lawyers with questions. Oral arguments offer justices the chance to resolve nagging doubts about a case, probe its weaknesses or make a point to their colleagues.
Left, right and center, the justices ask and they ask and they ask. Sometimes they debate each other, leaving the lawyer at the podium helpless to jump in. "I think you're handling these questions very well," Chief Justice John Roberts quipped to a lawyer recently in the midst of one such exchange.
Leaning back in his leather chair, often looking up at the ceiling, Thomas takes it all in, but he never joins in.
Monday was no different. Thomas said nothing.
He occasionally leans to his right to share a comment or a laugh with Justice Stephen Breyer. Less often, he talks to Justice Anthony Kennedy, to his immediate left.
Thomas, characteristically, declined to comment for this article. But in the course of his publicity tour for his autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son," the 59-year-old justice discussed his reticence on the bench on several occasions.
The questions may be helpful to the others, Thomas said, but not to him.
"One thing I've demonstrated often in 16 years is you can do this job without asking a single question," he told an adoring crowd at the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.
The book tour showed that the topic comes up even among friendly audiences.
Indeed, Thomas' comment was provoked by this question: Why do your colleagues ask so many questions?
His response: "I did not plant that question. That's a fine question. When you figure out the answer, you let me know," he said.
The typical hourlong argument session can sometimes be difficult, even for a practiced questioner.
"I really would like to hear what those reasons are without interruption from all of my colleagues," Justice John Paul Stevens said at an argument in the fall.
The newest justice, Samuel Alito, has said he initially found it hard to get a question in sometimes amid all the former law professors on the court.
The last time Thomas asked a question in court was Feb. 22, 2006, in a death penalty case out of South Carolina. A unanimous court eventually broadened the ability of death-penalty defendants to blame someone else for the crime.
In the past, the Georgia-born Thomas has chalked up his silence to his struggle as a teenager to master standard English after having grown up speaking Geechee, a kind of dialect that thrived among former slaves on the islands off the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts.
He also has said he will ask a pertinent question if his colleagues don't but sees no need to engage in the back-and-forth just to hear his own voice.
Lately, he has focused on the latter reason.
"If I think a question will help me decide a case, then I'll ask that question," he told C-SPAN's Brian Lamb in October. "Otherwise, it's not worth asking because it detracts from my job."
He talked in that same interview about descriptions of him as the silent justice.
"I can't really say that it's unfair to say that I'm silent in that context. I would like to, though, be referred to as the 'listening justice,' you know," Thomas said. "I still believe that, if somebody else is talking, somebody should be listening."
The following month, however, at an event sponsored by Hillsdale College in Michigan, Thomas was more combative when asked about oral arguments.
Suppose surgeons started discussing the merits of removing a gallbladder while in the operating room, Thomas said, as quoted by U.S. News & World Report. "You really didn't go in there to have a debate about gallbladder surgery," he said. Similarly, "we are there to decide cases, not to engage in seminar discussions."
It's a good thing the court has 9 people so the other 8 can get the job done for him.
It’s good to know that someone on the Court is listening to the sound of someone else’s voice besides his own, and thinking about something other than what he wants to say next.
I am on the last chapter in his book. It’s a good book but as I read the chapter on his USSC confirmation hearing it really makes my blood boil.
That's nothing. You should have watched as it happened!
If the questions are being asked, who cares who asks them?
I like the guy. I've heard him speak on several occasions. I defended him during the confirmation, but this trait is neither cute or an indication of any outstanding characteristic I can think of; not in that context.
"Did you sell the last chocolate Babka."
Should he ask questions just to ask questions? I mean, if he is listening intently isn’t that what we really need? I’ve heard many of these questions asked by judges that sound more like speeches than true inquiry.
I'm certainly not one of them, and I do have Master's degree. That will soon make me the least educated member of my immediate family. Wife has PhD, #1 daughter has JD, #2 daughter has MA and is a PhD student. But just ask any of them. I still talk the most. I think it's a gene the girls didn't inherit, since my mother and her sisters are the same way (well her oldest sister. Dieing is the only thing to stop us, and she stopped about a year ago. ;) )
I’ve been most impressed with Justice Thomas the few times I saw him promoting his book. While always deep, I cannot recall a time I have heard his voice sound so deep. He could have made millions invoice overs.
I saw him make the argument about cases having been argued into the ground by the time the SCOTUS sees them. At the same time, to go two years with out asking one questions leads me to believe he is furthering his reputation, or has handcuffed himself from being intellectually curious.
Thomas’ upbringing was so counter to many Blacks of that age, and not only are Thomas’s views unique, they are virtually nonexistent in any other black that I have heard speak. (including Cosby) The man is an island in so many ways.
Unless he is a mindreader it is unfathomable that he didn't have any question for any purpose whatsoever.
The questions asked are not for clarification. They are asked to advance the position of the judge. Justice Thomas style is to not ask them, and criticism of him on this point is a canard.
You do him great disservice by suggesting he needs help from the others to “do his job.”
Nice defense, but..........Questions are asked for several reasons. If he doesn’t need to “adsvance his position,” it is inconceivable that he understands everything precisely and never needs to clarify anything (in what form of human communication is clarification never needed?).
Prior to serving on the Court,Justice Thomas was appointed by Reagan to head the EEOC and made great progress in repairing an agency which had become a bureaucratic mess. He is quite scholarly and is perfectly capable of understanding the issues of the case and putting them in proper context.
The people who now question his competence or his work ethic are of the same ilk as the scumbags who tried to wreck the nomination in the first place. These same people lionize Thurgood Marshall as an intellectual giant, which is far from the truth, and their attacks on Justice Thomas are designed to titillate and give secret pleasure to like minded liberal bigots, of which there is no shortage. Those familiar with Justice Thomas’ background and past accomplishments know the truth of the matter.
He’s not quiet, everyone else is too loud.
I am aware of the process for filing appeals. I have sat in US circuit courts three times and several times in state courts.
It is inconceivable given human communication that someone can put all of their ideas in writing and have a reader that would have no need to have follow-up questions about context, intent, law or clarification. It's a good thing the other judges do not engage in the questionable practice.
I’m not bemoaning the lack of polictical speeches. However, I do question no clarification or judical challenges to the attorneys year after year.
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