Litigation

Supreme Glimpses: Silent Thomas, ?Justice? Obama?

By Peter Hardin

An intriguing anniversary on the Supreme Court is noted by Tony Mauro in the National Law Journal.

It was four years ago that Justice Clarence Thomas last asked a question from the bench during oral arguments. Mauro uses the anniversary to discuss a law review article asserting the justice’s silence harms the high court and its decision making.  Mauro also includes another point of view: that perhaps Justice Thomas’s silence duly reflects his humility.

In an unrelated Washington Post commentary, law professor Jeffrey Rosen of George Washington University asks whether President Barack Obama might be suited for a seat on the Supreme Court. Obama’s “even temperament and low boiling point seem tailor-made for the court at this polarized moment,” Rosen wrote of the former senator who also taught constitutional law.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 22, 2010 (boomark / email).