Justice Clarence Thomas
Supreme Court of the United States
Clarence Thomas was born in June 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia, and grew up in Savannah with his maternal grandparents. His parents were descendants of American slaves, and the family spoke Gullah as a first language. He was the only black person at his high school in Savannah, where he was an honor student. Raised Catholic, he considered entering the priesthood and attended Saint John Vianney Minor Seminary, later attending Conception Seminary College in Missouri. He earned an undergraduate degree in English literature from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He received a deferment from the military draft to serve in Vietnam due to having a curvature of the spine. He graduated from Yale Law School with a Juris Doctor.
He was appointed an Assistant Attorney General in Missouri and subsequently entered into the private practice of law. He served as a legislative assistant to Senator John Danforth of Missouri and was appointed Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. President Ronald Reagan appointed him Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Thomas was appointed by President George H.W. Bush for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he served 18 months before being nominated to a seat on the United States Supreme Court. His confirmation hearings before the Senate were bitterly fought, but he was subsequently confirmed by a vote of 52-48, and assumed his position in October 1991, succeeding Justice Thurgood Marshall. He is the longest-serving justice among current Supreme Court members.
He is divorced from Kathy, with whom he has one child, and is married to Virginia. He is a Catholic.
In the News…
Justice Clarence Thomas was joined by Justice Samuel Alito in dissenting from the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up an appeal of a recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling on the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). The associate justice said this particular appellate court has misapplied the statute dozens of times. Justice Thomas stated that “the Sixth Circuit’s analysis blatantly disregards both AEDPA and this Court’s precedents.“
Justice Thomas wrote, “The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) sharply limits the power of federal habeas courts to review state criminal convictions.“ He continued, “First, the panel majority refused to apply AEDPA’s highly deferential standard of review.“
Justice Thomas added, “The panel majority faulted the state court for a supposed error that is not clearly established under this Court’s precedents.“ He wrote that “the panel majority also erred by critiquing the Ohio court’s opinion-writing style rather than its judgment.“
Justice Thomas stated, “The panel majority’s errors have real consequences“ since, in this case, the state of Ohio must retry a man “for a crime committed nearly a decade ago. That result comes at a steep cost for both society and the victim. Retrial diverts significant time and resources away from other law enforcement activities, and it is often “more difficult” because of “the ‘erosion of memory’ and ‘dispersion of witnesses’ that accompany the passage of time.”
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Justice Thomas today? You can let him know at:
The Honorable Justice Clarence Thomas
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20543
