Supreme Court justice praises late federal judge from Ark
Last updated Friday, January 26, 2007 9:41 PM CST in News
By Jon Gambrell
The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK -- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas remembered a late federal court judge from Arkansas on Friday as "perhaps the most outstanding judge in his time" for championing individual liberties and judicial restraint.
In a 35-minute speech to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's William H. Bowen School of Law, Thomas praised Richard Sheppard Arnold's judicial style and sparingly offered his own opinion.
"He adhered to a well-defined philosophy of classical liberalism -- stressing individualism and skepticism of large government," said Thomas, the guest speaker for a lecture series bearing the Arnold family's name.
Arnold served as a judge on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis from 1980 until his death in 2004. President Bill Clinton considered appointing Arnold to the Supreme Court, but decided against it when the judge was diagnosed with lymphoma.
Thomas outlined Arnold's life from his birth in Texarkana, Texas, to his clerking for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan and working in his family's private practice. Thomas called Arnold "a modern example of a learned man," describing how Arnold taught himself Italian through reading Dante's "The Divine Comedy."
"Despite his passion for language and his keen intellect, Judge Arnold made his opinion accessible to the language," Thomas said. "He wrote his opinion for the public, not for legal scholars. Now if only the rest of the judiciary would follow his lead."
Over his career, Richard Arnold crafted more than 700 opinions, but one of his best-known cases involved an opinion later reserved by the Supreme Court. Arnold sided with the Jaycees civic club in a lawsuit against the club's policy of only admitting men.
"Certainly, Judge Arnold could have taken the most popular route. It would have been quite easy for him to uphold a politically popular anti-discrimination law," Thomas said. "He did not, however. He took the unpopular route, the route he believed in.
"The opinion that followed Judge Arnold's view of his role as a judge -- to apply the law as it existed, even when he might have disagreed with it as a policy matter."
Thomas took no questions from the audience gathered at the Little Rock event, keeping nearly all of his speech focused on Arnold's life. While U.S. Supreme Court justices have traditionally shied away from making public comments, Chief Justice John Roberts has embraced a more media-friendly attitude in the nation's highest court. Other justices have appeared at events in recent months, supporting their views of the constitution.
The Roberts court's trend may not affect Thomas. He asks virtually no questions during argument sessions and gives few speeches.
During his speech, Thomas focused several times on Arnold's support of judicial restraint, stressing the importance of the separation of powers between the legislators who make the laws, and the judges who interpret them.
"According to Judge Arnold, a departure from precedent would have looked more like the exercise of arbitrary power and an abandonment on checks of judicial authority," said Thomas, the Supreme Court's only current black justice. "To decide a case one way yesterday and then to reject the decision as nonbinding the next would be more akin to fiat than reason."
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