One of the abiding mysteries at the Supreme Court is why Justice Clarence Thomas has failed to say a word in almost seven years of arguments. On Monday, when he finally broke his silence, the mystery was replaced by a riddle: Just what did Justice Thomas say? [...]UPDATE (Reuters):
The court transcript confirms that Justice Thomas spoke, for the first time since Feb. 22, 2006. It attributes these words to him, after a follow-up comment from Justice Scalia concerning a male graduate of Harvard Law School:
“Well — he did not — .”
Guess we'll look forward to more brilliant scholarly insights from him in another seven years.
At the January 14 argument, the justices considered the qualifications of two court-appointed lawyers, one from Harvard and one from Yale, who had once represented a Louisiana death penalty defendant. It was a side issue as the court weighed whether the defendant was denied a speedy trial.
The revised transcript shows that the lawyer representing Louisiana, Carla Sigler, called the Yale-educated lawyer a "very impressive attorney" and the Harvard-educated lawyer "very exceptional."
That prompted Thomas to weigh in. "Well, there - see he did not provide good counsel," he said.
The original transcript had Thomas saying "Well - he did not" but it was hard to make out the words because there was much courtroom laughter and cross-talk among the justices.
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