Clarence Thomas’s Legal Time Machine Zooms to 1789
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June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Don’t let the U.S. Supreme Court’svery contemporary cases on gene patenting and same-sex marriagefool you: At least one justice is still living in the 18thcentury and doesn’t care who knows it.
Justice Clarence Thomas followed his astonishinglyconsistent originalism in Alleyne v. U.S. today, joined by thecourt’s four liberals -- and none of its conservatives -- inholding that a fact that increases a defendant’s mandatoryminimum sentence must be found true by the jury, not by thejudge alone.