WSJ: Justice Sotomayor on Justice Thomas

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaking to the American Constitution Society, June 16:

I suspect I have probably disagreed with him more than with any other justice, that we have not joined each other’s opinions more than anybody else. And yet Justice [Clarence] Thomas is the one justice in the building that literally knows every employee’s name. Every one of them. And not only does he know their names, he remembers their families’ names and histories. He’s the first one who will go up to someone, when you’re walking with him, and say, “Is your son OK? How’s your daughter doing in college?” He’s the first one that when my stepfather died sent me flowers in Florida. He is a man who keeps cares deeply about the court as an institution, about the people who work there, but about people. . . . You really can’t begin to understand an adversary unless you step away from looking at their views as motivated in bad faith, but until you can look at their views and think about what the human reaction is that’s motivating those views.

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