Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas (* 23. June 1948 in Pin Point , Chatham County , Georgia ) is an American lawyer and since 1991 Judge at the Supreme Court of the United States ( Supreme Court ). He is the only African American in the United States' highest court and is considered part of the conservative wing of the court.
Personal history
Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, a small community near Savannah , to Roman Catholic parents. He intended first priest to be, and briefly attended a seminary , before the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester studied English literature. He completed his legal education in 1974 at the Law School of Yale University from.
Thomas was close to leftist positions at the university before turning to authors like Ayn Rand and Thomas Sowell and their free-market ideals. Later he identified more and more with conservative and Catholic positions in social politics. He divorced his first wife, Kate Ambush, whom he married in 1971, in 1984 and has been married to Virginia Lamp since 1987. He has a son from his first marriage.
Legal career
Thomas served as the Assistant Attorney General for the state of Missouri from 1974 to 1977 . Between 1977 and 1979 he was a corporate attorney for the chemicals company Monsanto and from 1979 to 1981 assistant to the Republican Senator John Danforth . From 1981 he served in the administration of US President Ronald Reagan : until 1982 as head of the civil rights department in the Ministry of Education and from 1982 as chairman of the government commission for equal opportunities in working life ( Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ). In this office he succeeded Eleanor Holmes Norton .
In 1990 he was nominated by the Republican President George Bush sr. as a judge at the influential Court of Appeals for Washington, DC ( Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ), and - after some controversy in the judiciary committee - confirmed the time of the Democratic -controlled Senate nomination.
Appointment as judge of the Supreme Court
In 1991, after Judge Thurgood Marshall's resignation, Thomas was nominated by President George Bush to succeed him at the Supreme Court .
In the hearings in the Justice Committee controlled by the Democrats, Thomas offered strong resistance from the Democratic side because of his rejection of specific benefits for minorities ( affirmative action ) and his suspected opposition to the right to abortion . In addition, his professional qualifications and his intellect were questioned. When accusations arose during the hearings that Thomas had sexually molested a former subordinate, Anita Hill , the hearings turned into a media spectacle. The corresponding testimony against Thomas failed to convince the committee, however, and it referred the nomination - without a motion for or against - to the Senate plenary. Thomas described the proceedings in the reopened hearings on October 11, 1991 as "high-tech lynching for rebellious blacks". Four days later, the Senate confirmed Thomas in office with 52:48 votes, the closest result in judge elections in the 20th century.
Thomas is known for not asking questions during negotiations, which he justifies by saying that his job is to listen to the lawyers. He did not ask any questions between February 2006 and February 2016.
Jurisprudence
At the Supreme Court, Thomas' case law (like that of the late Judge Scalia ) is primarily characterized by its strictly originalistic interpretation of the United States Constitution . Thomas is of the opinion that the constitution should be interpreted exclusively as the founding fathers intended. In the past, this brought him into conflict with his more liberal fellow judges, who broadly interpret the constitution, in particular in the area of federal competencies and civil rights, and also want to take into account changes in society in the case law. In Thomas' and Scalia's view, this liberal notion of a “living constitution” is mere judicial activism, in which judges who are not elected by the people arrogate the powers of the legislature and constitution. But even Thomas often calls for deviating from the common law principle of stare decisis and also changing the long established case law of the Court of Justice in favor of its "originalistic" constitutional interpretation. He is the judge who in most cases finds himself in the minority at the court.
As a result, Thomas' principles of interpretation usually lead him to socio-politically conservative legal opinions, but occasionally he also joins the liberal wing. In detail, he takes the following main views:
- The protection of the first constitutional amendment for freedom of expression should be interpreted broadly.
- The second constitutional amendment conveyed a basic personal right to carry weapons.
- The prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments” in the eighth constitutional amendment should be interpreted narrowly. Even the beating of a prisoner by guards, although condemnable and probably otherwise illegal, is not unconstitutional. The death penalty is also constitutionally permissible.
- The powers of the federal legislature under the traditionally broad so-called commerce clause of the constitution should be interpreted narrowly. This would mean that large parts of the entire federal law would have to be repealed as unconstitutional.
- The preferential treatment of minorities, especially blacks ( affirmative action ) is unconstitutional because it violates legal equality.
- Laws that penalize consensual (e.g. homosexual ) sexual behavior among adults are " silly ", but not unconstitutional.
- The powers of the executive , especially in times of war, should be interpreted very broadly. B. in connection with the arrest of terrorism suspects.
literature
- Samuel A. Marcosson: Original Sin: Clarence Thomas and the Failure of the Constitutional Conservatives. NYU Press, New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-8147-5640-9 .
Web links
- Biography at the Supreme Court (English)
- Clarence Thomas in the nndb (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court (minutes of the hearing in the Judiciary Committee of the US Senate on the nomination of Clarence Thomas as a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States of America) ( Memento from September 13, 2013 on the Internet Archive ), Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library , October 11, 1991.
- ↑ Supreme Court: US judge asks first question - for ten years. In: Spiegel Online . March 1, 2016, accessed January 8, 2017 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Thomas, Clarence |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American lawyer, United States Supreme Court Justice |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 23, 1948 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pin Point , Georgia |