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Ralph A. Rossum : Understanding Clarence Thomas: The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Restoration . (Lawrence : University Press of Kansas , 2013. Pp. 293.)
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Clarence Thomas became a justice of the Supreme Court in 1991 after a famously contentious confirmation hearing. In the two-plus decades since, Ralph Rossum argues, Thomas has developed and defended an understanding of the Constitution that has made a lasting impact on the Court. Indeed, Rossum quotes some Court advocates and observers who believe Thomas will be one of the most influential justices of the modern court. Indeed, even the law professors and media outlets that embarrassed themselves with their vitriol about Justice Thomas during his nomination have now largely a grudging respect.
Rossum, who previously has written on the jurisprudence of Justice Antonin Scalia and is a professor of American constitutionalism at Claremont McKenna College, wants to make the case for Justice Thomas's jurisprudence. His initial chapter outlines Thomas's "original general meaning" of the Constitution. Five subsequent chapters trace how that interpretive position affects Thomas's decisions in numerous areas of law, such as federalism, criminal procedure, freedom of religion and other fundamental rights, and race and equality.
Justice Thomas's jurisprudence was originally (mis)understood as simply derivative of Justice Scalia's more famous originalism. This, Rossum persuasively argues, is mistaken. Originalism as a way of understanding the Constitution has taken several primary forms. Its early articulations looked...