There's an interesting article about Justice Thomas at https://reason.com/2023/01/07/dont-underestimate-clarence-thomas/
From the article:
From the article:
Quote:
Thomas, by contrast, has shaped the law by playing the long game. During the last three decades, he has repeatedly staked out lonely positions, often writing in dissent but sometimes penning a solo concurrence. Many of those "fringe" positions ultimately become enshrined in law. What's more, generations of conservative law students, who have gone on to become conservative lawyers, lawmakers, and judges, have embraced many of Thomas' opinions as their own. His influence on the broader conservative legal movement will be felt for years to come.
If you want to understand both the current Supreme Court and where the Court might be headed, you need to understand the jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas.
...
Legal scholars usually rank Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who sat on the Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932, as one of the most important jurists in American history. Yet many of Holmes' most significant and oft-cited opinions were written in dissent. It sometimes took him decades to see his views reflected in the judgments of the Court. He placed long bets and eventually, after some lean years, won big.
Will future scholars say something similar about Thomas? His colleagues seem to think so. As the late Justice John Paul Stevens observed in his 2019 memoir, The Making of a Justice, "President Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas to fill the vacancy created by Thurgood Marshall's resignation resulted in the most important change in the Court's jurisprudence that took place during my tenure." Like it or not, Thomas has made his mark on American law.
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