Tag: Clarence Thomas

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“I Don’t Give a Fuck if You’re Innocent: The Perverse Judicial Philosophy of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas”

A man is convicted of rape and murder of a child.  He is sentenced to death.  He appeals and appeals, and the execution is delayed.  He ends up sitting in prison for 30 years.

But he has always maintained his innocence.  Many people believe him.  After considerable efforts by outside groups, his case is re-examined by the same District Attorney’s office that convicted him and they discover that the evidence used to convict him was false, was presented to the jury inaccurately, and that in all probability he did not commit the crime.   They find that he had a remarkably incompetent lawyer and they assert that a reasonably competent attorney could, with some assurance, have persuaded a jury of their client’s innocence.

The key evidence against him consisted of an “expert’s” conclusion that internal injuries suffered by the child could only have occurred during a window of opportunity when the man had exclusive custody of the child and, presumably, may have been caused by rape.  A reexamination of that evidence by competent experts concluded, with certainty, that the injuries had, in fact, occurred before that window of opportunity.  The other charges against him all depended on that original medical evidence.

The man was innocent though it was believed he should have sought medical care for the child sooner than he did.

Quiz question:  would the legal system in the United States then do the right thing and release the man, and expunge his record?

I bet you think so.  I bet any decent, rational human being would think so.  But you are not Clarence Thomas.  Here is Clarence Thomas’ judgement:

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said that a federal court considering a habeas corpus petition, or a petition challenging the validity of a prisoner’s conviction or sentence, “may not conduct an evidentiary hearing or otherwise consider evidence beyond the state-court record based on ineffective assistance of state post-conviction counsel.”

In other words, nah nah nah nah.  In other words, we don’t give a damn if he’s innocent: lock him up.  This is a Supreme Court Justice speaking.  He has god-like powers of the judicial system in the United States.  He openly declared that even if a man can be proven innocent, once a court has found him guilty, he stays guilty.

We made a huge mistake, a massive judicial error, but because you didn’t catch us, you have to die.  (Barry Jones was sentenced to death: I’m not sure why it was not carried out.)

“The idea that Mr. Jones had committed the fatal injury — the evidence was no longer there,” she concluded, adding, “The original theory of the state was flawed.”  Laura Conover

Laura Conover is the country attorney for Pima County which prosecuted the original case in 1995.  It is quite unusual for officials in the same office that prosecuted an innocent man to man up and admit they made a mistake.  It is rare.  Bravo for Laura Conover.  One wishes she was on the Supreme Court instead of Clarence fucking Thomas.

Thomas isn’t alone on this: the other five Republican appointees think it’s perfectly swell to not want to hear anything that contradicts a guilty conviction once the sucker has been convicted.   This is a legal system that knowingly denies poor litigants adequate counsel.  Public Defenders, as every knows, are almost all overwhelmed with the volume of cases they handle, which is also why so many plea deals are made.  This is why many, many innocent people plead guilty to reduced charges– because they know that their chances of being convicted no matter what the evidence is very high.

I use the word “fuck” in my title because this attitude by fucking Clarence Thomas and his asshole colleagues is utterly, monstrously, categorically evil.  There are those who agree with my conclusion but feel it is counterproductive to resort to name-calling and invective.  I’m not involved in U.S. politics so I feel free to say what I think about Clarence Fucking Thomas.  He should be impeached.  And all of the Republican Senators who voted to confirm him should resign their seats in craven remorse because they all declare loudly and vociferously how much they love freedom and liberty and justice for all.

 

 

 

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Ketanji Brown Jackson

I really wish Biden had not announced, during his campaign for the presidency, that he would appoint the first black woman justice to the Supreme Court.

There was no need.  He should have said nothing and then gone ahead and appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson out of the blue, as his choice as the most qualified candidate.

Not because he was wrong.  But because it fed into the false far-right narrative that deliberately choosing a black woman and excluding all white men or women is a form of racial discrimination.

So if a black person is charged with a crime and appeals his verdict all the way to the Supreme Court and is a confronted with 9 old white men who will arbitrate his fate, there is no problem.  They are the best.  They are the most qualified.  And there could not possibly be the slightest racial bias embedded in their judgements.

That’s what the far-right would have you believe because, to be blunt, they are too stupid to see a problem.

What they ignore, of course, is, first of all, that there very likely is a racist element to the selection of those judges.  Every single Senator who voted to confirm those justices could openly, sincerely declare that race did not play a role in their choice to confirm.  But that would imply the belief that racism played no role in the establishment that created the network of personal connections, criteria, cultural institutions, inflections, language, and so on that provided them with the nominees from which they chose the members of the Supreme Court.  They might even sincerely believe that these old white male justices would have enough amazing insights into all of the issues and conditions that black people experience to render an objective and fair verdict on each case.  They might believe that black people experience the same law and the same enforcement strategies as white people and that, therefore, there could not possibly be any discriminations or injustice in the way the police and prosecutors conduct their prosecutions.  The police are just as likely to stop or pull over a white citizen for a “random” check as a black citizen.  They are just as like to respect his rights and assume innocence as a they would for a white suspect.  They are just as likely to use physical force.

That is a fantasy.

I don’t think they really believe it themselves.  They know they cannot openly declare that only white people (or black conservatives) should be on the Supreme Court because they are white.  They can’t openly declare that black people are trying to steal the material benefits created by hard-working white people.

They can’t admit that Clarence Thomas was chosen because he was a black conservative and they relished the idea of liberals having to consider rejecting a black nominee just because he was a lousy ideologically driven judge.

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Clarence Thomas, Wake Up

Thomas criticized the majority for imposing ”its own sense of morality and retributive justice” on state lawmakers and voters who chose to give state judges the option of life-without-parole sentences. ”I am unwilling to assume that we, as members of this court, are any more capable of making such moral judgments than our fellow citizens,” Thomas said. NYTimes, May 17, 2010

That is a stunning declaration.  What I do, says Thomas, as a Justice on the Supreme Court, is rubber-stamp any cockamamie decision you want.  But we know: as long as it is a conservative decision.

Wow! Even for a long-time follower of the diminutive career of Justice Clarence Thomas, this one is particularly mind-boggling. He appears to have forgotten what the Supreme Court is for. He calls it a “moral judgment” but what he is talking about is the job of the court to ensure that government legislation and policy does not infringe on the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Thomas, having accepted the job of navigator on this airplane, suddenly exclaims, “why are we on an airplane? We should be on a boat instead” and jumps out the window.

What is a “moral judgment”? The majority (6-3) simply agreed that the Constitution of the United States prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”. Is it a moral judgment to force voters and legislators to obey the constitution? Could it be that the framers of the constitution didn’t mean cruel and unusual? Maybe they meant to ban “reasonable and humane” punishments instead.

One has to ask the obvious question: does Clarence Thomas know he is on the Supreme Court? Does he understand what a Supreme Court does? If the Supreme Court is not capable of “making such moral judgments” about what was meant by “cruel and unusual”, then what exactly, one wonders with astonishment, is the function of the Supreme Court?

But then we know what Clarence Thomas’ answer would be: to prevent suspects from defending themselves against criminal charges. To prevent citizens from suing corporations. To prevent corporations from being unprofitable. To prevent minorities from oppressing the majorities with their extravagant demands for equal opportunity, fair wages and a safe workplace. To prevent women from stealing jobs from white men. To prevent black men from stealing jobs from white women. To prevent parents of minority school children from demanding trained teachers and science labs. To prevent reporters from demanding information. To prevent police from having to seek medical attention for injured prisoners. To prevent privatized prisons from having to provide adequate space and staff for prisoners. To prevent witches from witching and sorcerers from corrupting the minds of young children with their liberal theories and scientific text books and pagan culture. To prevent feminists from being feminine and masculine men from using mescaline. To prevent guns from falling into the hands of pacifists and pacifists from falling into the hands of lesbians. To prevent lesbians from being lesbians or living in sin or enticing gay-bashing preachers to have children they could adopt.

Let us all now and forever and again deliriously sing the praises of the unlawful, the unconstitutional, the transcendent Clarence Thomas. May he go down in history as the only Supreme Court Justice to ascend directly into heaven.

Thomas might answer that the Constitution is not a moral document. But that’s not the issue and he knows it, for he asserts that Congress and the voters have the right to make “such moral judgments”. I think Thomas would concede that what he is saying is that the “moral” content of the judgment that a life sentence is too harsh for a mere property crime is not subject to constitutional constraints.

If the public wants to torture and hang a witch– so be it. Who are we to say they shall not torture or hang a witch? Who are we to say there are no such things as witches?

My other ecstatic tribute to Justice Clarence Thomas.

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Yoo hoo– America? Your constitution is being abrogated. Do you care?

Probably not. No, don’t get up from Survivor or American Idol. Take your popcorn and your super-sized cola back to your couch. Relax. You are white and middle class and… well, . You have nothing to fear. The man on trial is dark-skinned. Like that man they shot after he fled that plane in Miami.

Mr. Salim Ahmed Hamid–he’s Yemeni– used to drive Mr. Bin Laden’s car. That’s right. And America caught him somewhere– in Afghanistan, I believe. Certainly not in Iraq– you know– that country that didn’t have any connection to Mr. Bin Laden? Salim Ahmed Hamad is on trial. Well, no he isn’t. Well, yes he is.

Okay, so Mr. Hamad used to drive Mr. Bin Laden’s car and he was his body guard. So that’s a crime, right? Right– this was after Mr. Bin Laden was no longer a friend of ours. That’s right.

So it appears that Mr. Hamad might not have actually broken any laws in America, or overseas, actually, but damnit– that’s no excuse for letting a known chauffeur to a terrorist former tool of U.S. foreign policy go free. We’ll try him anyway. Mr. Bush can just appoint a bunch of men– make them military men– and we’ll just hold a “trial”. After all, Mr. Bush was elected, so it’s not as if he were unaccountable.

Mr. Hamad’s lawyer thinks he should be entitled to a fair trial, due process, and all that crap. You’d almost think he was white or spoke without an accent. Is the ad almost over? So the Supreme Court is trying to decide whether or not the President could just appoint anybody he feels like appointing to hold a trial or something like it and pass a sentence or just shoot the bastard, without damned interference from those pointy-headed justices or congressmen or anybody else.

Lucky for Mr. Bush, the Republican appointees, including Mr. Thomas– who was so impressed with the arguments of Mr. Bush’s lawyer representative, Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, that he didn’t feel the need to ask a single question– are all on his side. Well, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Alito certainly are, but Mr. Roberts can’t vote on this one because, as a Federal Appeals Court justice, he already voted in favor of Mr. Bush’s position. He might at least have asked a question or two. I think Mr. Thomas did at least ask for a new crayon after a rapid-fire exchange of barbs between Mr. Clement and Justice Souter.

My fellow Americans, consider for a moment that in a case before the Supreme Court which many people consider to be one of the most pivotal in decades in terms of its impact on executive power and judicial process, Justice Clarence Thomas asked not a single question. He wasn’t even curious. He didn’t know what the hell Souter was all holy and loud about. Shut up Ginzburg! Kennedy, what the hell are you whining about? Is it dinner time yet?

Some brilliant artist out there should create a giant painting, a Guernica of American civil justice, called “Thoughts Entering the Head of Clarence Thomas as the Solicitor General Offered to Relieve the Court of Habeas Corpus”. I’m not an artist but there is such a desperate need for this art work that I might just make an attempt at it myself.

Justice Scalia shouted, why are we even hearing this dispute? If the President wants to arrest people and jail them, hell, he doesn’t need our permission. But before Clement could leave, Mr. Kennedy grabbed him by the collar.

Commercial over? Go back to your tv. Hey, it’s Natalie Holloway that they’re putting on trial…. Ha ha! Just kidding. What do you think this guy’s chances are?

On Osama Bin Laden’s Former Chauffeur

Imagine, if you will, an entire Supreme Court made up of Justice Clarence Thomas’s. This court would plow through a hundred cases in a month– not a single question would be asked of the lawyers arguing the cases! Whatever the government asks for, it receives. Whatever a defense lawyer asks for is denied. Criminals would not have been arrested if they had not been doing something wrong. If your creek is poisoned, move to another creek. If you think the government has secret information about you, tell us what it is and we’ll find out if it was wrong for them to obtain it. It is possible that your gender had nothing to do with your chances of being sexually harassed by your white male middle-class boss.

Life is simple and sweet.

Clarence Thomas’ thoughts on due process must be somewhere down here.