Mary Bruce Serene

State College

The NYT (5/12/24) reports that “Justice Clarence Thomas denounced the ‘nastiness’ and ‘lies’ that have shadowed him in recent years as public scrutiny has mounted over his wife’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election and the luxury gifts he accepted from billionaire friends.”

He failed to identify any specific lies and he cannot excuse his own cavalier disregard for judicial ethics.

I decline to hold a pity party for a man who has disgraced SCOTUS specifically and our judicial system generally. He should resign. Judges and lawyers should unite in calling for his resignation.

Public contempt for our judicial system is at an all-time high. Despite some obvious exceptions, ie Clarence Thomas, we mostly have honorable judges. An independent judiciary is what stands between a functional civilized western democracy and autocracy or chaos. We must defend our judicial system from its rotten apples (Thomas)–and from politicians who would corrupt it (Trump). It’s past time we demand accountability from those who would flaunt the rule of law for financial gain or partisan politics.

Until Trump, Presidents from both parties have respected common views on judicial qualifications and practiced a measure of restraint in allowing politics to control judicial appointments to the federal bench. That flew out the window under Trump when he appointed three doctrinaire Supreme Court Justices and multiple inexperienced lower-court judges with a political agenda, such as Aileen Cannon.

Trump damaged our independent federal judiciary in his first term. He’d destroy it in a second term.