Black America Web's Tonyaa Weathersbee is hopping mad that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas voted against allowing former death row inmate John Thompson — who was wrongly accused and convicted — to sue and collect for spending 18 years behind bars, 14 of them on death row. Weathersbee wonders aloud why Justice Thomas appears to dislike blacks, based on his judgments in cases involving blacks who have clearly been wronged. Check out what she has to say in an excerpt below:
EXCERPT
Maybe John Thompson reminded Clarence Thomas of a childhood nemesis. Maybe Thompson, who spent 14 years on Louisiana's Death Row when prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence that would have proved his innocence, reminded the Supreme Court justice of one of the bullies who taunted him about his coal-black skin. Or maybe, at least in Thomas' eyes, Thompson quickly morphed into a black man who was looking for a handout instead of justice. Or maybe it's all of the above. It has to be. Because there's no way that any fair-minded jurist would turn the sort of legal cartwheels that Thomas and his four other conservative colleagues on the high court recently turned to side with the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office in tossing out a $14 million verdict in Thompson's favor …
Incredibly, in writing for the 5-4 majority, Thomas said that Thompson didn't deserve any money because he couldn't prove that there was a pattern of similar violations in previous cases, or that prosecutors deliberately set out to violate the Constitution. He and his buddy, Antonin Scalia, basically said it was unfair for the entire prosecutor's office to be held responsible for one bad act. As if it wasn't unfair for Thompson, who is now 40, to have spent 18 years of his life — 14 of those on Death Row — locked up for a crime he didn’t commit. That’s a heartless, wrongheaded decision — and one that flies in the face of what Thomas is supposed to be about.
Thomas is, after all, a man who is supposed to be a champion of individual responsibility for black people.
Read more of Weathersbee's post at Black America Web.
In other news: Maryland Delegates to Debate in-State Tuition for Undocumented Workers.
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