In his new book, Professor Henry Mark Holzer uses Justice Thomas’s own words to convey his deep fidelity to constitutional originalism, one that is deeply rooted in his respect for our nation’s founding documents and their drafters.

Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas 1991-2006: A Conservative's Perspective
by Henry Mark Holzer
published by McFarland & Company (January 24, 2007)
Hdbk., 232 pages
ISBN-10: 0786430036

Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is one of the most brilliant legal minds to ever sit on the federal bench.  Just don’t tell that to most liberals in academia, the modern-day civil rights establishment, and the mainstream media who have spent over a decade and a half slandering the man for simply being a black conservative jurist who, when hearing cases before the Supreme Court, simply relies on the plain text of the United States Constitution and the original intent of the founding fathers who drafted it.  Isn’t that what every judge appointed to the federal bench is supposed to do? 

Tired of the vicious slander and smear tactics that have been leveled at Justice Thomas by the far left, retired law professor Henry Mark Holzer has penned The Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas, 1991-2006 (McFarland and Company, Inc., 2007).  Picking up where his previous book, The Keeper of the Flame, left off, Professor Holzer analyzes the nearly 350 majority, concurring and dissenting opinions (all of which are listed in the appendix) that Justice Thomas has authored during his tenure on the High Court. 

Professor Holzer details Justice Thomas’s jurisprudence on such constitutional issues as separation of powers, federalism, judicial review, and critical Bill of Rights issues such as abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, and the rights of prisoners.  The author shows how, unlike some of his colleagues on the High Court, Justice Thomas begins by methodically studying the text of the U.S. Constitution and relevant statutes, as well as founding documents, historical sources, contemporaneous evidence like the Federalist papers, and principles of natural law.  If necessary, Justice Thomas will even rely upon definition, syntax, history, context and reason.  (Justice Thomas, after all, does hold a BA in English – with Honors! – from Massachusetts’ College of the Holy Cross, as well as a Yale law degree.) 

Professor Holzer uses Justice Thomas’s own words to convey his deep fidelity to constitutional originalism, one that is deeply rooted in his respect for our nation’s founding documents and their drafters.  This is the exact opposite of current and former High Court justices who, based on their belief in a “Living Constitution,” have dishonestly misinterpreted the U.S. Constitution and federal statutes in an effort to create out of thin air ersatz “rights” which have absolutely no constitutional basis whatsoever.  (See Griswold v. Connecticut, Grutter v. Bollinger and Kelo v. City of New London, among other egregious examples.)  As Professor Holzer shows, Thomas, in his opinions, has no problem with taking the Court to task for its oftentimes incongruous and constitutionally groundless decisions.

When interpreting the Constitution and Federal Statues, Justice Thomas has written:

Thus, history provides an answer for the constitutional question posed by this case . . . The dissent identifies no evidence that the Framers intended to disable religious entities from participating on neutral terms in evenhanded government programs.
— Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.

In cases dealing with the scope of federal power:

The Court has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the [Tenth Amendment]’s Commerce Clause has virtually no limits.  Until this Court replaces its Commerce Clause jurisprudence with a standard more consistent with the original understanding, we will continue to see Congress appropriating state . . . powers under the guise of regulating commerce.
— United States v. Lopez.

No sitting justice on the Supreme Court has been a bigger champion of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech than Justice Thomas:

I do not see a philosophical or historical basis for asserting that “commercial” speech is of “lower value” than “noncommercial” speech.  Indeed, some historical materials suggest to the contrary.
— 44 Liquormart v. Rhode Island.

The author explains why he wrote this important book:

Too many members of the public have uncritically accepted the professional character assassination visited upon Justice Thomas by a certain segment of the professional and academic legal community.  I cannot count the times that people who should have known better, simply upon hearing Clarence Thomas’s name, immediately responded with derogatory comments about his abilities as a justice – even though they have never read a single opinion of the hundreds Thomas has written . . . Attacks on Justice Thomas have been unconscionable distortions of an unambiguous and distinguished record.  Simple justice requires they be rebutted because his opinions, often eloquent, reveal him as a thoughtful conservative who understands the role of a Supreme Court justice, the methodology of proper constitutional and statutory adjudication, and the appropriate resolution of the many issues that have come to the Court during his tenure.

That the far Left, particularly the modern-day civil rights establishment, has chosen to personally attack Clarence Thomas instead of trying to better understand what makes him tick only underscores an important fact of modern-day liberalism: Liberals, by and large, are intellectually incapable of debating the merits of, or defending their positions on, important legal and public policy issues with those with whom they disagree.  Instead, they attack, slander and malign those who dare to challenge the foundations of liberal orthodoxy.

As Professor Holzer shows, Thomas is a scholar, gentleman and intellectual heavyweight who is faithful to the U.S. Constitution, and thus deserves to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.  Naysayers attack him because, quite frankly, that is all they can do.  They couldn’t hold a candle to Justice Thomas in an all-out, bare-knuckle debate on constitutional law.  He would mop the floor with them.  And they know it.

Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas 1991-2006 is available on Amazon.com.