It is Justice Thomas' job to apply law as it exists to complicated cases. It is not his responsibility to agonize about how the law effects people, except when and if a law violates the constitution.

Sorry, but it's just not his job to decide what's fair. Take it up with your elected representatives.

It is not his responsibility to agonize about how the law effects people, except when and if a law violates the constitution.

I would have to say that 'how the law [a]ffects people" is the whole point of the Bill of Rights. The equal protections amendments (5 and 14) also deal directly with fairness. So I'm not sure that you can separate caring about people or fairness from caring about the constitution.

Are you out there looking for some rock wall with the "law" chiseled into it with some narrow and immutable meaning? Sorry Charlie, the "law" as it exists in the Anglo-American tradition is, and always has been, an interpretive process. It is not free form, a law does not mean anything and everything, but it surely and necessarily must be interpreted. How do you think 5 "conservative" justices found an equal protection argument by which to cut off the vote count in Florida in 2000?

Well, the 'job' he took on this time was to write his book. It seems he is at least exposing some of the struggles he will have in applying the law 'as it exists' (whatever that means) because of his binary world view.

But we should read the book and see.

What you say doesn't make complete sense to me, and to the extent that I understand it, it seems wrong.

As others have replied, interpretation and application require evaluation of how a law affects people. Consideration of Constitutional principles involves this analysis as well.

I'll add an observation O'Connor has made many times: It's a common law court.

It's certainly the job of a justice to care about fairness.

"I would have to say that 'how the law [a]ffects people" is the whole point of the Bill of Rights."

No.

How the Law affects people is determined by judges hearing lower level cases.

How the Constitution/Bill of Rights/Amendments affects the Law is heard by the Supreme Court.

By vote count in Florida, you mean the one that, after 14 recounts, still showed Bush ahead by over 1,000?

Fairness? The Justices job is to determine what the Constitution means. The Constitution isn't always "fair".

Justice and fairness are two different things.

And, once again,San..there is your problem. You do not realize that a law, or a body of law that is not inherently fair is not worth preserving or obeying.

To think of the law as some sort of Holy Writ above the needs or control of real,actual human beings is solipsism at best - and blind ignorance at it's worst.

Absolutes are quite often absolutely wrong - especially when they fly in the face of new information and experience.

I suspect you have never questioned much of what you believe in, nor probed deeply into your reasons for such beliefs.

If the Constitution isn't "fair" then fix it. The fault lies not in testing and questioning the fairness of the law, but in failure to do so. A Supreme Court that cannot or will not adapt to reality will become extinct, and a Justice who values codified law above humanity and reality does not understand that the purpose of Law is to serve Man, not vice-versa.

Think some more on this, without jerking your knees.

"You do not realize that a law, or a body of law that is not inherently fair is not worth preserving or obeying."

Life isn't about being fair.

Its about justice.

Fariness can mean whatever some guy on acid wants it to mean. Justice means giving what is earned.

It may be fair to give everyone 50,000 dollars, but its not just. If someone works five years for that money, and someone else doesn't, that is not justice. Property rights are based on justice. Socialism is not. We are a society based on justice.

Life isn't fair. Not everyone is born equal. Deal with it.

San!!

Get it straight you atheistic fraud!

Property rights are NOT based on JUSTICE.

Property rights are based on the REVEALED WORD OF GOD.

You pretend to be one of the faithful, but I can tell you're nothing but a creeping Nominalist, a polluter of the wellsprings of truth, beauty, justice and the American Way!!!

There is a reason that its called Justice rather than Judgement.

Precisely because the law is unfeeling text and cannot take into account the impact on individuals, is why we need HUMAN BEINGS in the role of those evaluating the application of the law. Your failure to acknowledge this demonstrates a particularly harsh and dehumanizing way of treating other people. Now as your NIC indicates, as a conservative, that is consistent with the overall conservative view of the world and other people.

Fortunately it has for most of American History, been a minority view. Sure many ideas that used to be considered radically leftist have become centrist or even somewhat conservative, so your conservatism is probably less austere than Hamilton's, but it still is a very stultifying and brittle way of dealing with the world. And Thomas exemplifies how brittle this sort of viewpoint makes him. His inability to accept, to move on, to even be honest about how and why the Anita Hill issue surfaced, is not the hallmark of a great man, much less a great or even good Justice.

Sad really

Thinking about how a law affects people is a job for the people making the law -- and for the juries, who have the power to refuse to convict under an unjust law. The Supreme Court's duty is merely to decide whether a law is inconsistent with a higher law, i.e., the Constitution -- not whether the law is good or bad on its own merits. (That is for the people, through their elected lawmakers, to decide.)

"Property rights are NOT based on JUSTICE."

Not according to Locke or Hobbes.

And their language was quoted in the Constitution.

"Precisely because the law is unfeeling text and cannot take into account the impact on individuals"

Individuals don't matter.

Citizens do.

A citizen is about giving up your rights for certain protections.

Thats not fair.

Its just.