Would Judge Sears' friendship with Thomas affect your support if she were nominated?

Posted May 10th, 2009 by Prometheus 6

Sears grew up in Savannah. Thomas was reared 11 miles away in Pin Point. Her family was middle class; his, poor. But in those days, families knew families, Douglass said. Thomas and Sears had mutual friends but did not befriend each other until he made the call. Theirs is one of the few lasting bonds Thomas has in the black legal community because his conservative opinions on issues such as voting rights, affirmative action and the power of the federal government to correct injustices have left him alienated by many.

Supreme Court Prospect Has Unlikely Ally
Friendship With Thomas May Complicate Chances for Left-Leaning Georgia Judge
By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 10, 2009

One day in the early 1990s, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas telephoned Leah Ward Sears to introduce himself. She was a rising star in Georgia's legal community, a relatively liberal black woman on the state's conservative Supreme Court. Thomas had read about political attacks against Sears and called to say he didn't like it.

"It affected her that he would take the time to comfort her in that situation," said Bernard Taylor, an Atlanta lawyer and longtime friend of Sears, now chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and a potential nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. "They're still friends."

Many years after that phone call, the friendship that has endured makes for one of the more intriguing subplots of President Obama's upcoming decision. In naming Souter's replacement, Obama is likely to choose a liberal jurist. Some in the civil rights community are hoping that person will be an African American, such as Sears, to soothe the lingering bitterness over the appointment of Thomas, a conservative who is the court's only black justice.

But if the choice does turn out to be Sears, the nation's first black president would be nominating someone whose closest friend on the court is the very person civil rights activists have accused of failing to represent African Americans' interests.

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Knew about it when I put her name into the mix

On May 10th, 2009 rikyrah says:

her record as a judge is what I went by.

Wouldn't her friendship with

On May 10th, 2009 no1kstate says:

Wouldn't her friendship with Thomas help her in confirmation? What really are the publicans going to say? They don't like the black woman even though she's a friend of one of their favored supreme court justices who endured a "high-tech lynching" of his own?

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't put it past them. I trust the publicans and their ranking judicial member Sessions about as much as I trust my 2-year-old cousin not to reach in scratch her behind and then rub my arm. I don't. (Yeah. There's a story there but it's irrelevant to this topic.)

Wouldn't her friendship with

On May 10th, 2009 ptcruiser says:

Wouldn't her friendship with Thomas help her in confirmation?

Help her with who?

Trust among 2-year-olds and racist senators

On May 10th, 2009 ProfGeo says:

no1kstate: There's a story there but it's irrelevant to this topic.

Well, do us a favor and put it in the open thread then.

Her Record Is The Question

On May 10th, 2009 DarkStar says:

Her record is the quesiton, not her friendship.

That's not what

On May 10th, 2009 Prometheus 6 says:

That's not what Conservatives said last election, but hey...

Scares me a little...

On May 10th, 2009 TKG says:

http://makethemaccountable.com/articles/The_Path_To_Florida.htm

As the drafts began circulating, tempers began to fray. In an unusual sealed memo—an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the clerks’ prying eyes—Scalia complained about the tone of some of the dissents. He was, he confessed, the last person to criticize hard-hitting language, but never had he, as the dissenters were now doing, urged the majority to change its decision based on its impact on the Supreme Court’s credibility. He charged that his opponents in the case were inflicting the very wounds to the Court that they had supposedly decried. As Jeffrey Toobin first reported, he objected in particular to what he called the “Al Sharpton footnote” in Ginsburg’s dissent: her comment on Florida’s disenfranchised black voters. Whether out of timidity, collegiality, or affection—Scalia was her closest friend on the Court—Ginsburg promptly took it out. “It was the most classic example of what kind of bully Scalia is,” says one clerk, who called Scalia’s complaint “an attempt to stifle legitimate discourse worthy of Joe McCarthy.” As for Ginsburg, this clerk says her response “showed a lack of courage.”

I’m disappointed with Ginsburg if she deferred to Scalia out of deference/affection. I’ll admit to being slightly uncomfortable with the idea of putting someone on Supreme Court who sees Thomas as a mentor.

Thanks for that link, TKG.

On May 10th, 2009 Preston says:

I agree with you, too. The last thing we need is a judge like Ginsburg who's too timid and weak to stand on principles just because they're good friends with a colleague. Sears could turn out to be a reverse-Souter. Then again Sears' temperament maybe different than Ginsburg to where she can't be easily swayed and cowed. It's really a tough call.

@ProfGeo - It's a really

On May 11th, 2009 no1kstate says:

@ProfGeo - It's a really funny story when I tell it. I'm not sure it translates in writing, but I'll tell it anyway. It cracks me up!

@TKG - Thanks for the info. I'm, like rikyrah, disappointed in Ginsburg's acquiencense. I'm stunned by the memo. A little angry as well. Could this be grounds for impeachment? Cause the truth is, when you make decisions as in the Ledbetter case, who really thinks the Supreme Court hasn't become a conservative pawn?

I'm getting less and less optimistic about the decision in the firefighter case.

Prometheus 6