Justice Thomas asks questions in court, first time in 10 years

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas broke his decade-long silence Monday and asked several questions during an oral argument about whether people should lose their right to carry a gun because of a domestic violence conviction.

“But Thomas peppered Eisenstein with several questions about Second Amendment gun rights, a topic no other justice had asked about”.

The questions from Thomas left Eisenstein, who had looked about ready to sit down, a bit stumped-or perhaps just stunned due to their source.

“Can you give me another area where a misdemeanor violation suspends a constitutional right?” With many republicans becoming more and more critical of democrats for looking to go against the constitution perhaps Thomas felt the need to defend it. With the 2016 election coming up, and democrats feeling as though the constitution of this country is an evolving document – one which must change with the times – others feel that it must remain constant. “It’s just a family member’s involved in a misdemeanor violation; therefore, a constitutional right is suspended”. It suspends a constitutional right. None of the other justices visibly reacted to his remarks. Heller-“which I disagree with”, noted Breyer-is the 2008 case in which the court, for the first time, recognized an individual right to own firearms and which overturned DC’s strict gun control law.

“The suspension is not directly related to the use of a weapon?”

“It was not at all unusual for justices not to ask questions”, Scalia said. The men say the law should only cover intentional acts of abuse and not those committed in the heat of an argument.

On Monday, Thomas asked questions of a lawyer during Supreme Court arguments for the first time in 10 years. Thomas did not pose questions to Virginia Villa, the lawyer arguing on behalf of the two men.

Thomas has come under criticism for his silence from some who say he is neglecting his duties as a justice.

Thomas, the court’s only black justice, in the past has attributed his reluctance to ask questions to a few factors, some personal.

Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Thomas who now heads a conservative advocacy group, said the justice had kept his silence “because he felt that oral arguments have become less civil and respectful of the attorneys and their arguments over the past two decades, often becoming little more than rhetorical jousting among the justices”.

Eisenstein concluded that Congress could not deprive a publisher of its First Amendment rights because of a misdemeanor crime, and that the law at issue in the case also did not fully deprive defendants of their Second Amendment rights either. The court is expected to release transcripts of the exchange Monday afternoon.