It’s Been 9 Years Since Justice Clarence Thomas Asked A Question

The American legal scholar and journalist Jeffrey Toobin reminds us on Facebook of a remarkable fact: “Happy anniversary, Justice Thomas!” Toobin writes. “February 22, 2015 marks nine years since he last asked a question during Supreme Court arguments.”

Toobin, who wrote The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, has written of Justice Thomas’s “disgraceful silence” before–specifically last year in the New Yorker to occasion the 8th anniversary of Thomas’s refusal to interrogate the attorneys who argue before SCOTUS. Thomas has said there’s little need for him to ask questions. “Maybe it’s the Southerner in me. Maybe it’s the introvert in me, I don’t know,” he’s said. “I think that when somebody’s talking, somebody ought to listen.” Thomas has designated himself the second somebody in that sentence. Come to think of it, The Second Somebody sounds like a great title for a Clarence Thomas memoir some day–wherein we’ll finally learn what he’s thinking?

Happy anniversary, Justice Thomas! 2/22/15 marks 9 years since he last asked a question at #scotus.

— Jeffrey Toobin (@JeffreyToobin) February 21, 2015