{"product_id":"understanding-clarence-thomas-the-jurisprudence-of-constitutional-restoration-9780700619481","title":"Understanding Clarence Thomas: The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Restoration","description":"\u003cp\u003eThough Clarence Thomas has been a Supreme Court Justice for nearly 25 years and has written close to five hundred opinions  legal scholars and pundits have given him short shrift  often  in fact  dismissing him as a narrow partisan  a silent presence on the bench  an enemy of his race  a tool of Antonin Scalia. And yet  as this book makes clear  few justices of the Supreme Court have developed as clear and consistent a constitutional jurisprudence as Thomas. Also little known but apparent in Ralph A. Rossums detailed assessment of the justices jurisprudence is how profound Thomass impact has been in certain areas of constitutional lawnot only on the bench but also even among some of his erstwhile disparaging critics.  During his years on the Court  Thomas has pursued an original general meaning approach to constitutional interpretation; he has been unswayed by claims of precedentby the gradual build-up of interpretations that  to his mind  come to distort the original meaning of the constitutional provision in question  leading to muddled decisions and contradictory conclusions. In a close reading of Thomass hundreds of well-crafted  extensively researched  and passionately argued majority  concurring  and dissenting opinions  Rossum explores how the justice applies this original meaning approach to questions of constitutional structure as they relate to federalism; substantive rights found in the First Amendments religion and free speech and press clauses  the Second Amendments right to keep and bear arms  the Fifth Amendments restrictions on the taking of private property  and the Fourteenth Amendment regarding abortion rights; and various criminal procedural provisions found in the Ex Post Facto Clauses and the Bill of Rights.  Thomas grounds his original general meaning approach in the Declaration of Independence and its \"self evident\" truth that \"all men are created equal\"; that truth  he insists  \"precedes and underlies the Constitution.\" Understanding Clarence Thomas traces the many consequences that  for Thomas  flow from the centrality of that \"self evident\" truth  and how these shape his opinions in cases concerning desegregation  racial preference  and voting rights.  The most thorough explication ever given of the jurisprudence of this prolific but little-understood justice  this work offers a unique opportunity to grasp not just the meaning of Clarence Thomass opinions but their significance for the Supreme Court and constitutional interpretation in our day.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647388246069,"sku":"ByrdShop_0700619488","price":36.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780700619481.jpg?v=1781692191","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/understanding-clarence-thomas-the-jurisprudence-of-constitutional-restoration-9780700619481","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}