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mike parwana's avatar

I sympathize with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Filling out forms can be really confusing and I often have a hard time properly filling out government paperwork. I recently had to do some stuff at DMV - did you know you have to have an appointment? I didn’t, and I had to go back the next day - anyway, I thought I’d done a pretty good job. I printed out the proper forms at home and filled in all the pertinent information, or I thought so anyway. But the clerk there was very nice and helpful. She fixed a few things with her red pen, I paid my fee, and I was out of there with new plates and a new registration!

So Justice Thomas and I are a lot alike in our problems with paperwork. Maybe I could be a Supreme Court justice! If I was I’d hire that clerk from DMV to help me out with some of the detail work.

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Irene Baldwin's avatar

Your essay is spot on, especially the point about people in positions of public trust avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. It is important that we all see judges as impartial, so they are expected to not only avoid actual conflicts of interests, but anything that might even look like one to people. I'm pretty sure it is part of attorneys' (and judges') code of professional responsibility to avoid even that perception of conflict.

The lack of discernment on the part of Thomas and other Justices is shocking and especially troubling in people who sit in judgement. They all need to hunt around for whatever common sense they once had and ask themselves "if normal people knew about this, would they see it as a conflict?" And if the answer is even a slight "maybe", they disclose.

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