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Thomas dissents in denial of climate change states case

homesafetytechpros — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 16:33:32 +0000

Left: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas. Right: Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Samuel Alito. (Alex Wong/Getty Images.)

Two of the Supreme Court’s stalwart conservative justices railed against the Court’s majority for not allowing Alabama and a coalition of Republican-led states to step in and attempt to block dozens of climate-change lawsuits filed by states led by Democrats against energy companies.

California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have filed over two dozen lawsuits against Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron and other oil companies seeking to hold them responsible for deceiving customers about the risks posed by fossil fuels. The particularities of the lawsuits vary, as each raises a set of allegations arising under the laws of the relevant state.

In general though, the lawsuits charge that the companies have known for decades that greenhouse gas emissions from use of fossil fuels would contribute to climate change, and that the companies failed to warn consumers and used deceptive marketing practices that maximized profit, tricked consumers, and harmed the environment.

California was the first to file one of these lawsuits in 2023. At the time, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said the energy industry has been lying to citizens for over half a century. Newsom also said oil companies should be held accountable for “wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells.”

Alabama and 18 other Republican-run states sought to block the climate change lawsuits on the basis that California and the others were unconstitutionally attempting to dictate interstate energy policy beyond their own borders via the use of tort lawsuits. The states argue that this practice infringes on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate interstate emissions. The group requested to file a complaint directly with the Supreme Court as a dispute between states themselves, invoking the Court’s rarely-used original jurisdiction.

California and the other defendant states challenged the filing and argues that the arguments Alabama and the others were seeking to raise could be raised by the energy companies in the climate change lawsuits themselves. In its brief, the California group argued that “Alabama’s desire to protect those private defendants from liability is not the kind of sovereign concern that warrants an exercise of this court’s original jurisdiction.”

The Court, without comment from the majority, declined to allow Alabama and the others to file their complaint before the justices Monday.

Justice Clarence Thomas penned a dissenting statement, joined in full by Justice Samuel Alito. in which Thomas chastised the justices for eschewing their responsibility to hear disputes between states. Thomas wrote that “the Court’s assumption that it has ‘discretion to decline review’ in suits between States is ‘suspect’ at best.”

According to Thomas, “This discretionary approach is a modern invention that the Court has never persuasively justified.” He wrote that the Court’s decision to make only “sparing use” of original jurisdiction is “part of a broader policy” that seeks to limit the Court’s caseload relating to disputes between states, which have the potential to become overwhelming in modern society.

Thomas, however, said that despite the rationale, decisions to decline review of disputes between states “are not ours to make,” as it is the Constitution that sets out the bounds of original jurisdiction. Further, he argued, the ruling, “leaves the 19 plaintiff States without any legal means of vindicating their claims against the 5 defendant States.”

A similar outcome occurred in the 2021 case of Texas v. California, in which Texas attempted to challenge a California law that prohibited the state from spending any money on travel to other states that fail to offer adequate protections for LGBTQ individuals. As in the climate change case, Texas alleged constitutional violations and asked the high court to weigh in. The justices declined to allow Texas to proceed with the filing, and Alito issued a scathing dissent — joined by Thomas — in which he said that the “economic warfare” between Texas and California is precisely the kind of case for which the Court has original jurisdiction.

The Court does occasionally exercise original jurisdiction, mostly in cases involving water rights, the dissent noted.

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Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this article.

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Lawsuit targets Elon Musk’s DOGE using Justice Thomas quote

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 02:01:37 +0000

Left: Elon Musk on September 25, 2020 in Los Angeles, California (zz/Wil R/STAR MAX/IPx (AP)). Center: Clarence Thomas (YouTube/Library of Congress). Right: Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump in August 2023 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File).

The words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have found their way into one of multiple lawsuits targeting the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Those words will likely prove familiar.

In a 64-page lawsuit filed by 14 states on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs attacked the basic constitutional legitimacy of the cost-cutting organization with an iteration of the exact same argument that spelled doom for onetime special counsel Jack Smith in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

As readers will recall, last summer, Chief Justice John Roberts and a majority of the justices issued a broad grant of presidential immunity; then, two weeks later, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon used a concurrence to that opinion by Thomas to squelch Smith’s authority and dismiss the case against Trump with a novel reading of the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

Now, led by New Mexico, the latest anti-DOGE complaint uses an Appointments Clause argument of its own.

“There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual,” the lawsuit begins. “President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities. As a result, he has transformed a minor position that was formerly responsible for managing government websites into a designated agent of chaos without limitation and in violation of the separation of powers.”

The lawsuit, which names Musk, DOGE, and Trump as defendants, argues the executive branch lacks the authority to either unilaterally create or “dismantle” a federal agency.

“Framers of the Constitution crafted the Appointments Clause to protect against such tyranny in our system of government,” the lawsuit reads. “The Appointments Clause was designed to buttress the separation of powers in two ways: first by requiring that Congress create an office before the President can fill it, and second by requiring that the Senate confirm a nominee to an office created by law.”

To hear the plaintiffs tell it, Musk’s “significant and unprecedented” perch within the Trump administration has effectively rendered him an unappointed “principal officer” of the United States.

“Mr. Musk takes actions that can only be taken by a nominated and confirmed principal officer of the United States,” the lawsuit goes on. “But President Trump did not appoint Mr. Musk with the advice and consent of the Senate. Mr. Musk does not occupy an office created by law and has no authority to exercise the powers of a principal officer, or any other officer. Mr. Musk’s actions violate Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.”

This framework is precisely how Cannon viewed Smith. And, like Cannon, the plaintiffs have cited Thomas to make their case.

From the lawsuit, at length:

Importantly, the Appointments Clause only grants the President the power to nominate officers to offices that Congress has already “established by Law.” U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2. “If Congress has not reached a consensus that a particular office should exist, the Executive lacks the power to unilaterally create and then fill that office.” Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593, 650 (2024) (Thomas, J., concurring). “By keeping the ability to create offices out of the President’s hands, the Founders ensured that no President could unilaterally create an army of officer positions to then fill with his supporters. Instead, our Constitution leaves it in the hands of the people’s elected representatives to determine whether new executive offices should exist.” Id. at 646 (Thomas, J., concurring).

The lawsuit, in a secondary argument, also says Musk and DOGE are acting beyond any statutory authority.

The plaintiffs are asking the court for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction that directs Musk to disclose how any government data obtained by DOGE has been used so far, that orders Musk to destroy any copies of such data in his possession, and that broadly bars him and DOGE from acting on any such data. The lawsuit contains a laundry list of 10 would-be prohibited actions.

New Mexico and the other states, in often bombastic terms, are also asking the judge to echo some of their legal conclusions and rhetoric by issuing declaratory relief that “Musk’s officer-level governmental actions to date, including those of his subordinates and designees, are ultra vires and shall have no legal effect” and “declare that any future orders or directions by Mr. Musk or DOGE” are similarly unlawful.

No judge has been assigned to the case of this writing.

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Thomas dissents in death penalty ruling in ‘slut puppy’ case

homesafetytechpros — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 20:45:45 +0000

Left: Brenda Evers Andrew (image via Oklahoma Dept. of Corrections); Right: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (image by Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images).

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the only woman on death row in Oklahoma may have received an unfair trial because prosecutors introduced a slew of irrelevant evidence against her that presented her as an adulterous “slut puppy” to the jury.

The justices issued a per curiam decision ordering the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to reexamine the prosecution of Brenda Evers Andrew to determine if Andrew was deprived of due process when prosecutors used much of their tine at the proceedings introducing irrelevant evidence about her sex life, her purported failings as a mother and wife, and her alleged propensity for wearing sexy clothes.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, however, were not nearly as troubled by the potentially prejudicial evidence introduced against Andrew, and dissented from the Court’s ruling.

Brenda Andrew was convicted of the capital murder of her husband, Robert Andrew. Brenda Andrew’s extramarital lover — who was also her Sunday school teaching partner — James Pavatt, a life insurance agent with whom both Andrews were acquainted, was also convicted of the murder.

On Nov. 20, 2001, Robert Andrew was fatally shot in his garage. His wife was also shot in the arm during the incident, and she later told police that two armed assailants carried out the shooting. After Robert Andrew’s death, Pavatt and Brenda Andrew traveled to Mexico, then became suspects in the murder, until eventually, Pavatt confessed to committing the shooting with a friend. He denied that Brenda Andrew had been involved.

Nonetheless, the state of Oklahoma prosecuted Pavatt and Andrew separately, each for capital murder. At Brenda Andrew’s trial, the prosecution’s theory was that she conspired with Pavatt to murder Robert Andrew in order to receive proceeds from the $800,000 life insurance policy the couple had purchased from Pavatt. Pavatt was convicted and sentenced to death, and has spent the last 20 years on Oklahoma’s notably problematic death row.

After Brenda Andrew’s conviction, she filed a federal habeas petition in which she argued that irrelevant evidence introduced at her trial had been so prejudicial that it violated the due process clause of the Constitution. Prosecutors agreed that much of the evidence in question had lacked relevance, but disagreed that including it amounted to a due process violation.

In their ruling Tuesday, the justices recounted some of the problematic evidence introduced at Brenda Andrew’s trial:

Among other things, the prosecution elicited testimony about Andrew’s sexual partners reaching back two decades; about the outfits she wore to dinner or during grocery runs; about the underwear she packed for vacation; and about how often she had sex in her car. At least two of the prosecution’s guilt phase witnesses took the stand exclusively to testify about Andrew’s provocative clothing, and others were asked to comment on whether a good mother would dress or behave the way Andrew had. In its closing statement, the prosecution again invoked these themes, including by displaying Andrew’s “thong underwear” to the jury, by reminding the jury of Andrew’s alleged affairs during college, and by emphasizing that Andrew “had sex on [her husband] over and over and over” while “keeping a boyfriend on the side.”

Her lawyers later raised objections to the prosecutors’ “relentless” derision of their client, including referring to her as a “slut puppy” during the proceedings.

Though a split panel of the Tenth Circuit ruled against Brenda Andrew, one dissenting judge wrote that the state was focused “from start to finish on Ms. Andrew’s sex life,” in order to portray the defendant as “a scarlet woman, a modern Jezebel,” with “loose morals … plucking away any realistic chance that the jury would seriously consider her version of events.”

To hear Thomas and Gorsuch tell it, though, there was no issue with the fairness of Brenda Andrew’s trial. Thomas wrote in dissent that he rejected the majority’s recitation of facts as just one of the “errors” his fellow justices committed. Rather, Thomas noted, “the State presented ‘overwhelming evidence’ that Andrew participated in the murder of her husband,” with whom she had been entangled in a difficult divorce. Given the “unusually strong evidentiary case, which leaves little or no doubt that [Brenda Andrew] is guilty of the crimes charged,” the inclusion of evidence about her sexual history did not render the trial unfair, the dissent said.

As if to underscore his point, Thomas devoted nearly a quarter of his 17-page dissenting statement to providing his own statement of facts. Thomas detailed the victim’s discovery shortly before his death that his car’s brake lines had been cut, his receipt of phone calls falsely claiming that his wife was in the hospital, and the detailed plan hatched between Brenda Andrew and Pavatt to kill Robert Andrew. Thomas argued that much of the information about Brenda Andrew’s habits and history were relevant to establish her motive and intent.

While Thomas allowed that some of the evidence at trial may have been irrelevant — such as evidence of the particular clothing the defendant wore to dinner — introduction of that evidence had been harmless. Thomas also said that the prosecutor’s evidence that about Brenda Andrew’s “failings as a mother” were nothing more than rebuttal to her own evidence that she was a good mother. Thomas noted that while evidence of Brenda Andrew’s sexual history may have been introduced at trial, the prosecutors did not mention it during closing arguments.

Likewise, Thomas dismissed the “slut puppy” comment as a nonissue, explaining that prosecutors had not been calling Andrew a “slut puppy,” but rather, had been merely recounting an “abusive” phone call between Brenda Andrew and her husband in which she “baselessly” accused him of having an affair and used the term to refer to the other woman.

Oklahoma resumed executions in 2022 after a six-year hiatus following the botched lethal injections of two inmates. The state currently has 32 inmates on death row, of which Brenda Andrew is the only woman. Recently, an Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals judge said in open court that rather than pacing executions far enough apart to give corrections staff time to recover from an “unsustainable” pace of back-to-back deaths, the employees involved should simply “man up” and “suck it up.”

You can read the Supreme Court’s full ruling here.

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Judicial Conference declines to refer Justices Thomas, Jackson to DOJ for probes over alleged disclosure issues

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 21:16:20 +0000

U.S. Supreme Court

Judicial Conference declines to refer Justices Thomas, Jackson to DOJ for probes over alleged disclosure issues

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 6, 2025, 12:00 pm CST

The U.S. Judicial Conference indicated Thursday that it will not refer U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Department of Justice to investigate whether they violated ethics rules for alleged disclosure failures.

The Judicial Conference disclosed its decision in letters to two Democratic lawmakers who sought a probe for Thomas and to a conservative think tank that sought a referral for Jackson.

SCOTUSblog, Above the Law, Reuters, Law.com and the Volokh Conspiracy have coverage.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, who are Democrats, had requested referrals for Thomas following reports that he failed to disclose his interest in three properties sold to billionaire Harlan Crow, gifts of luxury travel from Crow, Crow’s payment of private school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew, and Thomas’ purchase of a recreational vehicle with a loan from another wealthy friend.

The conservative Center for Renewing America had sought Jackson’s referral for allegedly failing to disclosure some of her husband’s medical-malpractice consulting income and potentially failing to disclose private contributions to her investiture celebration.

Both justices have filed amended disclosure statements addressing issues identified by the lawmakers and the Center for Renewing America, said Senior U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr. of the Western District of North Carolina in the letters to the lawmakers and to the conservative group. Conrad is also the secretary of the Judicial Conference.

In addition, ethics rules exempted gifts of personal hospitality from disclosure, the letters said. Guidance released in March and April 2023 said the exemption does not apply to gifts of transportation that substitute for commercial transportation, however, and to gifts at a property regularly rented out to others for a business purpose.

Generally, new guidance is not applied retroactively to previously filed reports, the Judicial Conference said. With regard to the personal hospitality exemption, the Judicial Conference agreed that its 2023 guidance doesn’t apply to travel to travel before 2022 because of confusion over the issue.

The Judicial Conference letters also said there “is reason to doubt” whether the conference has the authority to refer Supreme Court justices to the DOJ.

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Trump aims to dismiss Jan. 6 charges, cites Clarence Thomas

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 03:31:27 +0000

Left: Special counsel Jack Smith turns from the podium after speaking about a Trump indictment in August 2023 (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin). Center: Clarence Thomas (YouTube/Library of Congress). Right: Trump stands on stage at the Libertarian National Convention in May 2024 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana).

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to dismiss the Jan. 6 case on the basis that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed and has unlawfully spent tens of millions of dollars “on his unjust and unwarranted prosecutions.”

The 30-page proposed motion to dismiss and for injunctive relief is premised on arguments that previously held the day in the Southern District of Florida. Namely, Trump’s attorneys argue the prosecutor in charge of the case was given his authority in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s appointments and appropriations clauses.

While those arguments did prove successful in one courtroom, in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has, so far, appeared disdainful of the idea that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s summer decision might be cited as controlling precedent.

That’s no problem for the 45th president — his latest motion largely relies on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“In an intervening opinion issued while this case was stayed, Justice Thomas observed that ‘there are serious questions whether the Attorney General has violated [our Constitutional] structure by creating an office of the Special Counsel that has not been established by law,’ and he instructed that ‘[t]hose questions must be answered before this prosecution can proceed,”” the filing reads. “In another intervening decision, a District Court issued a thorough and well-reasoned opinion that relied in part on Justice Thomas’s concurrence, credited many of the arguments raised in President Trump’s proposed motion, and dismissed charges unlawfully filed.”

The analysis offered by Thomas, of course, came as a concurrence — not the majority opinion — in the landmark case where Chief Justice John Roberts issued a broad grant of presidential immunity to Trump. Cannon would go on to famously use the concurrence to that opinion to squelch special Smith’s authority and dismiss the case.

Thomas was the only justice to cite the long-simmering Appointments Clause issue in an unfavorable light for the government in any of the opinions attached to Trump v. United States. The majority opinion actually lists, offhandedly, several ways in which the appointments power inures to the executive’s benefit. Thomas was also the only justice to mention the phrase “Appointments Clause” directly.

Thomas’ concurrence largely echoed arguments made by conservative amici curiae (Latin for “friends of the court”) on the Mar-a-Lago case docket. Somewhat controversially, Cannon recently heard oral arguments from several groups of amici regarding the legality of Smith’s appointment as special counsel.

Those amici asserted “private citizen” Smith’s appointment by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the Constitution because he was neither confirmed by the Senate nor sufficiently “authorized” by statute. Trump and his co-defendants, for their part, made similar objections to Smith’s role and funding in various defense motions.

And, though Trump v. United States was not about the Mar-a-Lago case, Smith and his office were implicated because he is the special counsel who brought and led both prosecutions.

In the present motion, the former president’s attorneys figured that one successful shot might as well be tried again by echoing the arguments highlighted by Thomas. The Thursday effort to dismiss the indictment mentions Thomas by name no less than 19 times.

From the filing, at length:

Justice Thomas instructed that the “essential questions” raised in the proposed motion “must be answered before this prosecution can proceed.” … Equally important is the fact that Justice Thomas’s concurrence and Judge Cannon’s thorough intervening decision present important and thoughtful reasons — many of which have not been addressed in this Circuit — supporting President Trump’s position that Smith’s appointment and work have violated the Appointments and Appropriations Clauses.

Calling the appointment clause issue a “fatal Constitutional defect” that is “causing irreparable harm,” Trump’s motion argues the superseding indictment filed by Smith — which was rewritten and refiled to comply with the high court’s presidential immunity decision — “must be dismissed.”

The filing ominously casts Smith’s grant of authority as a political effort by President Joe Biden to hamstring his greatest rival.

Again, the motion, at length:

The proposed motion establishes that this unjust case was dead on arrival — unconstitutional even before its inception. In November 2022, the Attorney General violated the Appointments Clause by naming private-citizen Smith to target President Trump, while President Trump was campaigning to take back the Oval Office from the Attorney General’s boss, without a statutory basis for doing so. Garland did so following improper public urging from President Biden to target President Trump, as reported at the time in 2022, and repeated recently by President Biden through his inappropriate instruction to “lock him up” while Smith presses forward with the case unlawfully as the Presidential election rapidly approaches. Everything that Smith did since Attorney General Garland’s appointment, as President Trump continued his leading campaign against President Biden and then Vice President Harris, was unlawful and unconstitutional.

As for the appropriations clause issue, Trump’s legal team offers something not entirely unlike a sticker shock argument.

“Between November 2022 and March 2024, Smith spent almost $20 million on his unjust and unwarranted prosecutions targeting President Trump,” the motion reads. “He has almost certainly spent many more untold millions more between March 2024 and today. In addition to the $20 million spent directly by Smith and his Special Counsel’s Office prior to March 2024, other unspecified ‘components’ of the Biden-Harris administration have spent more than $16 million on the same unlawful project. All of that money was spent in violation of the Appropriations Clause.”

To that end, the defense argues, “the Court should enjoin Smith and the Special Counsel’s Office from spending additional public funds in furtherance of the invalid Appointment Order.”

Technically, Trump’s filing is stylized as a motion requesting leave — an effort to get permission from Chutkan to make a more formal argument for dismissal and to enjoin Smith from spending any more money on the Jan. 6 case. Still, the filing advances the request for both forms of relief in a combined bid for leave by arguing that Trump has shown statutory “good cause” to raise the issues around Smith’s authority and funding.

“Smith’s lack of standing cannot be ignored,” the motion goes on. “The Court does not have jurisdiction over a criminal prosecution maintained by someone other than an attorney for the United States, and so must address this issue.”

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Justice Thomas’ wife reportedly thanked group for fighting Supreme Court reform

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 20:29:10 +0000

U.S. Supreme Court

Justice Thomas’ wife reportedly thanked group for fighting Supreme Court reform

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 5, 2024, 10:10 am CDT

Conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas walks during a break in a voluntary interview Sept. 29, 2022, in Washington, D.C., with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta/The Associated Press)

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, thanked a religious liberty group in an email for fighting Supreme Court reform, according to a recording of a call led by the group’s president and CEO.

Kelly Shackelford, leader of the First Liberty Institute, a group that litigates religious liberty cases, said he was reading from parts of Ginni Thomas’ email in his July 31 donor call, according to a story by ProPublica and Documented, which obtained the recording.

Thomas reportedly sent the email soon after President Joe Biden proposed three reforms: term limits for Supreme Court justices, a binding ethics code for the justices, and a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent decision on presidential immunity.

Thomas reportedly wrote to a staff member of the First Liberty Institute after a meeting.

“I cannot adequately express enough appreciation for you guys pulling into reacting to the Biden effort on the Supreme Court,” she wrote in the email, according to Shackelford. “Many were so depressed at the lack of response by R’s and conservatives” to reform proposals.

“You guys have filled the sails of many judges. Can I just tell you, thank you so, so, so much,” Thomas reportedly wrote in all capital letters.

Shackelford also criticized Justice Elena Kagan during the call for endorsing an enforcement mechanism for the Supreme Court’s new ethics code.

“That is incredible, somewhat treasonous, what Kagan did,” he said. “The chief justice rules the court. They’re trying to keep the other branches’ hands off of them. And then you’ve got Kagan from the inside really being somewhat disloyal and somewhat treasonous in what she’s doing.”

Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel at the First Liberty Institute, issued a statement in response to a request for comment by ProPublica and Documented.

“First Liberty is extremely alarmed at the leftist attacks on our democracy and judicial independence and is fighting to bring attention to this dangerous threat. It’s shameful that the political left seems perfectly fine destroying democracy to achieve the court decisions they favor instead of working through democratic and constitutional means,” Sasser wrote. “It is dangerous to the liberty of all Americans, regardless of political leanings, for any of the co-equal branches of government to seek to rule over another. Eighty-seven percent of Americans believe judicial independence is essential to protecting our civil rights. We will continue this fight for the future of our nation.”

Hat tip to How Appealing and Above the Law, which noted the story.

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Justice Thomas hires clerk accused of sending racist text; was she set up by rogue employee?

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 17:25:44 +0000

U.S. Supreme Court

Justice Thomas hires clerk accused of sending racist text; was she set up by rogue employee?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 26, 2024, 9:51 am CST

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas poses for an official portrait in the Supreme Court building Oct. 7, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

A graduate of the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School will be clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, despite a prior allegation that she sent a racist text while working at a conservative group.

Crystal Clanton, class of 2022, will clerk for Thomas for the 2024-2025 term, according to a press release (via How Appealing), the New York Times and an opinion column by the Washington Post.

The New Yorker had reported in 2017 that Clanton allegedly sent the text to a colleague in 2015 while working at the conservative student group Turning Point USA.

“I hate Black people,” the text said. “Like f- – – them all … I hate Blacks. End of story.”

Clanton told the New Yorker that she had no recollection of the messages, and they “do not reflect what I believe or who I am.” The executive director of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, told the New Yorker that “Turning Point assessed the situation and took decisive action within 72 hours of being made aware of the issue.”

Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, was on Turning Point USA’s advisory council. After Clanton left Turning Point USA, she lived with the Thomases for close to a year. Justice Thomas has said he encouraged Clanton to go to law school.

After her graduation, Clanton clerked for U.S. District Judge Corey L. Maze of Alabama and Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta.

The federal judiciary investigated the situation after Pryor hired Clanton at the request of seven Democratic members of Congress. Pryor told the judiciary in a letter that he learned that the racist email was actually written by a rogue employee fired for creating fake text messages to discredit co-workers. A lawyer for Clanton told Pryor that she did not dispute the allegation because of a nondisclosure agreement.

Thomas recommended Clanton to Pryor, and he thinks that the allegations were false, according to a letter that he submitted for the judiciary investigation.

“I know Crystal Clanton, and I know bigotry,” Thomas wrote. “Bigotry is antithetical to her nature.”

The judiciary investigation ended with a determination that Maze and Pryor knew about the allegations against Clanton but found them to be false.

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Idaho fails to execute serial killer Thomas Creech

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 23:07:30 +0000

An Idaho Department of Corrections vehicle patrols the exterior of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Kuna, Idaho on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Thomas Eugene Creech, inset, was set to be executed, but officials couldn’t stick an IV into his arm. (AP Photo/Kyle Green)

Idaho officials Wednesday morning halted the execution of the man who murdered five people because they couldn’t insert an IV into his arm to give him the drugs to kill him.

Thomas Eugene Creech, 73, was set to die Wednesday, but prison officials said they stopped the process when three different medical professionals tried eight times to stick the IV into him but failed, Idaho Department of Corrections Director Josh Tewalt told reporters afterward. They tried in Creech’s arms, legs, hands and feet. The warden halted the execution just before 11 a.m.

Officials began the lethal injection process hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay to halt the execution. But after the failed attempt, his lawyers filed another emergency motion for an immediate stay of execution.

“Given the badly botched execution attempt this morning, which proves IDOC’s inability to carry out a humane and constitutional execution, undersigned counsel preemptively seek an emergency stay of execution to prevent any further attempts today,” his attorneys said.

Tewalt said Creech’s death warrant has expired and the IDOC is considering its next steps.

Creech’s attorneys issued a statement blasting prison officials.

“We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today,” the statement said. “This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution … This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the state and the courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the country’s oldest death-row inmates in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy despite a well-known history of getting drugs from shady sources.”

A statement from Thomas Creech’s lawyers in Idaho, who say he was stuck with a needle ten times in a botched attempt to execute him with “mysteriously acquired pentobarbital.” pic.twitter.com/qQc5zoLebx

— Maurice Chammah🍹🎻 (@MauriceChammah) February 28, 2024

An Associated Press reporter who witnessed the execution attempt described Creech mouthing, “I love you,” to family members in a separate witness room as officials tried to stick the IV.

Creech was being executed for murdering a fellow inmate, 22-year-old David Dale Jensen, in 1981. He was convicted of four other murders in Idaho, California and Oregon dating to the 1970s. His “last” meal consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and ice cream.

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