Today's DJ has Eric Kingsley's From liberal lion to conservative stalwart: Clarence Thomas passes Brennan -- As Justice Clarence Thomas surpasses Justice William Brennan in tenure, the contrast between them underscores the Supreme Court's profound rightward shift since the liberal heyday of the Warren Court.
- Yesterday marked a milestone on the U.S. Supreme Court -- a passing of the ideological torch through the measurement of time. Justice Clarence Thomas, the most enduring conservative voice on the bench, has now officially surpassed Justice William J. Brennan Jr., the liberal lion of the Warren Court, in length of service.
- Brennan served 12,330 days on the court before retiring on July 20, 1990. Thomas reached that figure on Saturday and surpassed Brennan yesterday, placing him seventh on the all-time list of longest-serving justices.
- By passing Brennan, Thomas joins the upper echelon of judicial longevity. Only six justices remain ahead of him in days served, and most observers believe he has his eyes on the top. The remaining names were influential jurists, many with mixed historical standing. They include John Marshal Harlan (the lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson), Hugo Black (who authored Korematsu, Gideon v. Wainwright and Engel v. Vitale), John Marshal (Marbury and McCulloch), John Paul Stevens (wrote the dissent in Bush v. Gore), Stephen Johnson Field (Pennoyer v. Neff, and also wrote majority in Plessy).
- Finally at the top of the list is William O. Douglas (who authored Griswold), the longest-serving justice in history. To surpass him, Thomas must remain on the court until May 20, 2028. That date would mark 13,359 days of service -- just one more than Douglas's 13,358. That's less than three years from now and entirely within reach.
Fix the Court has released A Slightly Less Sorry State of Disclosure: A New Report on Judicial Financial Disclosure in the States (July 2024) California remains #1!
California (29 points, passable [tied for highest score]; same as last year): California justices’ Statements of Economic Interests can be found by searching on the Fair Political Practices Commission website. The gift/outside income section of the reports includes instructions saying that acceptance of such items “may result in a disqualifying conflict of interest.” We’d like to see more of that from the states — and from the federal judiciary.
[And see State Justices' Financial Disclosures 'Didn't Get Worse' In '24 - Law360]
UC Berkeley Students Get Inside Look into Careers in the Court System | California Courts Newsroom
While Jarvis and Schiff celebrate the legal baseball minds of the past, they admit that the game is over for attorney-players. "We will probably never again see a player who becomes an attorney and then gets into the Hall of Fame," Jarvis said. "It just doesn't make any economic sense. In the 19th century, players didn’t make very much money and when they retired they didn't have a pension, so they needed a way to feed themselves. But those days are gone. As a result, in the future we're only going to see baseball owners, baseball executives, and baseball commissioners getting into the Hall of Fame."
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