Leah Litman: Clarence Thomas' Latest Criminal Justice Ruling Is an Outright Tragedy

[In It to Win It]

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Archived: https://archive.ph/PpoAR

Many people watching Supreme Court opinions on Thursday may have breathed a sigh of relief as the court did not hand down any of the most-watched remaining cases (like the challenge to the president’s student debt relief program, or the challenge to affirmative action, or the challenge to LGBTQ equality and nondiscrimination protections).

But that’s only because a lot of people may have not been following the slow-motion disaster that has been unfolding in one of the less followed cases, Jones v. Hendrix. Jones involves a highly technical sounding, but practically significant, issue about when federal courts may correct wrongful convictions and wrongful sentences.

Essentially the case involves this scenario: What if it turns out that the federal courts that heard your criminal case made a mistake? And as a result of the courts’ mistake, you were convicted of something that isn’t actually a crime at all (because federal law doesn’t prohibit what you did), or, as a result of the courts’ mistake, you were sentenced to more time in prison than the law says you can be sentenced to? Can a federal court later correct the error in a federal habeas corpus proceeding when you challenge your conviction or sentence?

Today, the court, in a 6–3 opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, answered that question with a no. For people watching this catastrophe happen in real time, the result is not surprising. But it is a catastrophe nonetheless. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her powerful dissent, the opinion “unjustifiably closes off all avenues for certain defendants to secure meaningful consideration of their innocence claims.”

As a result of this opinion, people with illegal convictions and sentences—people who are legally innocent—will be stuck in prison for no good reason because the courts screwed up, not because they did. The law certainly did not require this result. And the Jones debacle carries a few warnings about the nightmare at One First Street.

[SamKnause]

1. Fuck the Supreme Court !!!

Corporations are not people.

Money is not speech.

Qualified immunity is a license to maim, torture, and kill.

Deciding when to stop counting presidential votes is election interference.

Asset forfeiture without evidence of a crime is theft.


Fuck the Supreme Court.

[quaint]

4. You are correct on all points.

[calimary]

9. Yep. That should be chiseled into marble somewhere, SamKnause.

Corporations are not people.

Money is not speech.

Qualified immunity is a license to maim, torture, and kill.

Deciding when to stop counting presidential votes is election interference.

Asset forfeiture without evidence of a crime is theft.


If it were up to me, I'd add your sixth line. But I'll keep it to your first five lines. Then, it's suitable for a poster in an eighth-grade current events class.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Clarence Thomas is an empty coke can.

[onenote]

3. It's not just a Clarence Thomas ruling. Five other justices signed onto the opinion.

Thomas could've dissented and the outcome would be the same.

[Elessar Zappa]

10. The other five are assholes too.

But Thomas and Alito are the worst.

[crickets]

5. Ugh. This is so wrong. nt

[mwooldri]

6. Makes for a busier presidential pardons committee then I guess.

Screw those justices.

Only remedy would be a presidential pardon then.

[spike jones]

7. But it is good for private for-profit prisons. n/t

[Dan]

8. Term Limits - 7 Years.