U.S. Supreme Court Justice - Clarence Thomas



U.S. Supreme Court Justice - Clarence Thomas

Introduction

On 22nd January, 1973 the Supreme Court of United States of America granted its verdict on one of the most controversial and highly debatable cases in the history. The case of Jane Roe v. Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade was not only symbolic of the progress of women's rights, but an indication of judicial activism and its potentially damaging effects. It began as a fight for an unmarried young woman and her desire to terminate her pregnancy, even though it did not pose serious dangers to the physical health (Adcock, 2001).

This paper will first provide the necessary expository information, highlighting the central characters in this historical case, the political climate of the Supreme Court Justices during the trial, as well as a earlier case, Griswold v Connecticut which preceded Roe v. Wade. The paper will discuss the proceedings of the case at both the levels of District and Supreme Court (Adcock, 2001).

Discussion

Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas born on 23th June 1948 is an American lawyer and judge since 1991 at the Supreme Court of the United States. He is the only African American on the Panel of Supreme Court of the United States and is part of the conservative wing of the Court (Macht 1995). Clarence Thomas is one of the most conservative judges of the Supreme Court, and one of the proponents of a position originalism, which attaches itself to a literal interpretation of the Constitution, the closest possible to what it could mean at the time of his proclamation to his contemporaries. He was close to former Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. For those rare occasions when it disagrees with Scalia, he generally votes in a sense more conservative than the latter (Mayer & Abramson 1994) (Bennett, 2004).

In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, he is the only judge to consider that the U.S. government may have its nationals in Guantánamo without legal recourse possible. In 2009, he was the only member of the Court to consider that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional, and then it is a federal law that states with a history of racial segregation cannot prevent blacks to vote through an amendment of the electoral law (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder). Clarence Thomas rarely asks questions during the public hearings. He is generally known for its discretion and too few conferences unlike his colleagues (Thomas 2001).

Roe v. Wade

In the 1970s, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, two hot shot young lawyers from Texas, recruited Norma McCorvey as lead plaintiff under the alias “Jane Roe” in a class action suit lawsuit on behalf of US women everywhere. Coffee and Weddington had graduated from the University of Texas Law School within five years of going to trial for one of the most famous cases in Supreme Court history. The defendant was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, an experienced lawyer known for ...