But Thomas peppered Eisenstein with several questions about Second Amendment gun rights, a topic no other justice had asked about.
Advertisement
For the first time in a decade, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday morning spoke during oral argument. “You’re saying that recklessness is sufficient to trigger a misdemeanor violation of domestic [assault] that results in a lifetime ban on possession of a gun, which, at least as of now, is still a constitutional right”, he said.
“Justice Thomas is the strongest defender of Second Amendment rights on the Court”, UCLA law professor Adam Winkler told Business Insider in an email.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly drew some gasps Monday when he broke a more than 10-year streak of not participating in opening questions.
Ginsburg, Scalia’s ideological opposite on the court, remembered Scalia giving her a draft of a dissent she called a “zinger” and how her “final draft was much improved thanks to Justice Scalia’s searing criticism”. “I find that coherence that you get from a conversation far more helpful than the rapid-fire questions. Even though some domestic violence is only a misdemeanor, it shows a propensity to engage in violence”, Winkler added.
“One question”, Thomas said, according to the transcript released by the Supreme Court. And the American people will discover that – indeed – no other constitutional right secured by the Bill of Rights to all Americans can be taken away from any person for having been convicted of a crime.
Thomas’ last question during oral argument was on February 22, 2006, and the 10-year anniversary of that day was the first on which the Supreme Court heard arguments following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who was Thomas’s ideological soul mate and who had defended his lack of questions over the years.
Or perhaps Justice Scalias death was a sort of passing of the baton, as it left Justice Thomas as the only one member of the court fully committed to the mode of constitutional interpretation known as originalism, which seeks to apply to rulings the understanding of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution.
Thomas has been very adamant about his silence in previous years.
The questions came in a minor case on domestic violence convictions and gun rights. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.. Thomas sat to the right of his fellow conservative and friend for years; Scalia’s chair in the court was draped in black, reported CBS.
Scalia was one of the court’s most aggressive questioners.
Advertisement
‘He was passionate about it all, and it was all important to him, ‘ Thomas said during the memorial at the Mayflower Hotel, which all eight justices and several hundred other people attended.
