Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Justice Thomas talks at court arguments, 1st time in 3 years

By: Associated Press//March 20, 2019//

Justice Thomas talks at court arguments, 1st time in 3 years

By: Associated Press//March 20, 2019//

Listen to this article
FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2018, file photo, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas sits as he is introduced during an event at the Library of Congress in Washington. Thomas is asking his first questions at Supreme Court arguments in more than three years. Arguments were almost over Wednesday in a case about racial discrimination in the South when the court’s only African-American member and lone Southerner piped up.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas sits as he is introduced during an event at the Library of Congress in Washington on Feb. 15, 2018. Thomas asked his first questions at Supreme Court arguments in more than three years. His questions came toward the end of oral arguments in a case about racial discrimination in the South.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court was about to adjourn for the day when the Georgia baritone politely inquired of the lawyer at the lectern.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only African-American member and lone Southerner, was breaking a three-year silence at high court arguments with a couple of questions in a case about racial discrimination in the South.

The case involves a black Mississippi death row inmate who’s been tried six times for murder and a white prosecutor with a history of excluding African-Americans from juries by using peremptory strikes, for which no explanation is required. The prosecutor excused five African-Americans from the jury in inmate Curtis Flowers’ sixth trial.

“Would you kindly tell us whether you exercised any peremptories?” Thomas asked Sheri Lynn Johnson, Flowers’ Supreme Court lawyer.

If so, Thomas wanted to know, “What was the race of the jurors?”

In Flowers’ sixth trial, Johnson said, Flowers’ lawyer excused three white jurors.

Even Thomas’ conservative colleagues seemed to favor Flowers in the course of the hourlong session, and the justice’s questions seemed intended to show that both sides can be conscious of race in jury selection.

In a similar case from Georgia in 2016, Thomas was the only dissenter when the court ruled for a black Georgia inmate. Thomas wrote then that the Supreme Court should not second-guess a trial judge who initially considered and rejected racial discrimination claims.

Before Wednesday, Thomas’ last questions were in a case about the reach of a federal law that bans people convicted of domestic violence from owning guns. Those were his first questions in 10 years.

He is the only justice who does not regularly pose questions from the bench. Thomas has explained that he relies on the written briefs and thinks his colleagues interrupt lawyers too often. As in 2016, he only piped up after everyone else was done.

Polls

Should Wisconsin Supreme Court rules be amended so attorneys can't appeal license revocation after 5 years?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Legal News

See All Legal News

WLJ People

Sea all WLJ People

Opinion Digests