Courts

Why Is Sonia Sotomayor Trying To Redeem Clarence Thomas?

Let's focus on the actual law, shall we?

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Sonia Sotomayor

(Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

There’s a lot wrong with the Supreme Court right now. An unprecedented leak revealed the Court is poised to undo 50 years of abortion rights. The Court’s likely to expand the Second Amendment even as gun violence become more and more commonplace. And the Court’s recent Sixth Amendment case makes having a bad lawyer a capital offense. As a result of this convergence of cases, the Supreme Court’s approval rating is in the toilet, and researchers have definitively proven the Court is far to the right of most Americans, not that anyone is willing to do anything but wring their hands over the Court’s efforts to remake the country.

Against this backdrop, the liberal bastion of the Court, Sonia Sotomayor, spoke last week at the American Constitution Society. Some of her comments were aimed at the reality of being on the Court with a 6-3 conservative majority and the toll that has to take:

“There are days I get discouraged, there are moments where I am deeply disappointed,” she said. “Every time I do that, I lick my wounds for a while, sometimes I cry, and then I say: ‘Let’s fight.'”

But also garnering a ton of attention are her words about Clarence Thomas. Though she notes she disagrees with him, she also notes that… he’s a nice guy? The hell?

I suspect I have probably disagreed with [Clarence Thomas] more than with any other justice,” Sotomayor said. “And yet, Justice Thomas is the one justice in the building who literally knows every employee’s name.”

“He is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution, about the people who work there,” Sotomayor added.

What? Why does she think this matters? Spoiler alert: it does not.

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(Also, let’s put a pin in the supposed care for the institution Thomas has — his predilection to, you know, not recuse himself on matters his wife, Ginni Thomas, is involved with tells a different tale.)

And I’m frankly tired of this trend of trying to humanize Supreme Court justices — as if that lessens the monstrous impact of their jurisprudence. It doesn’t matter that Amy Coney Barrett is charming or Brett Kavanaugh hires a bunch of women. It’s about the actual law, people.

Being nice is not a qualification for the Supreme Court. Indeed, someone can absolutely be nice to your face and vote to take away your fundamental rights. And this focus on “but he’s a nice guy” is a deeply problematic. It’s a distraction from the real impact of the decisions the Court’s making. I’d much rather a raging asshole on the bench who is willing to stand in the breach against the worst impulses of the majority. Someone who knows the names of people he works with but is committed to the erosion of rights that inflict pain and suffering on the most vulnerable in society is worthless. No, it’s worse that worthless — it paints a banal smile on a political agenda that should horrify us.

And, listen, I appreciate Sotomayor’s jurisprudence but perhaps she’s gotten too close to the enemy. Because Thomas’s penchant for remembering someone’s name won’t help a person forced to give birth because of Thomas’s jurisprudence. It doesn’t matter that Thomas is a “nice guy” when he boldly proclaims innocence is not enough to stop an execution. All that matters are the decisions and the impact they have on the nation. And Clarence Thomas’s are too far gone to be redeemed.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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