clarence thomas' dialect

[Joel S. Berson]

How many of Thomas's "recent opinions" are "I concur with Scalia"?

Joel

At 2/26/2008 04:58 PM, Dave Wilton wrote:
>I'm not sure that it's true that he has written fewer opinions than other
>justices. Written opinions are assigned by the chief justice (if the chief
>is concurring with the opinion, by the ranking associate if he is not). So
>the number of opinions should be fairly well distributed.
>
>If he does indeed have fewer written opinions, it's almost certainly due to
>the fact that he and Scalia join in concurring/dissenting opinions and
>Scalia is choosing to write them himself. (Often Scalia and Thomas join in
>separate opinions that concur with the decision of the majority.)
>
>The Cornell Law School web site lists 357 recent opinions for Thomas,
>compared to 422 for Scalia and 483 for Stevens. Scalia and Stevens write a
>lot of solo, concurring/dissenting opinions, so that's why they have more.
>Ginsburg has only written 263.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>Amy West
>Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 7:23 AM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: clarence thomas' dialect
>
>Thank you, Wilson! My gut reaction was that it's a BS excuse but I
>haven't got the linguistic chops to support that. Rather I would
>suggest taking a look at how many opinions he's *written*: very, very
>few. If it were a matter of hesitation in the spoken language, I
>think we would see a difference between the amount of speech in oral
>arguments and the written opinions, but we don't. The opinion of many
>of my legal friends is that both the lack of questions and written
>opinions are due to him riding on Scalia's coattails. The deeper
>reason is he's just unqualified for the position.
>
>---Amy West
>
> >Date:    Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:12:46 -0500
> >From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject: Re: clarence thomas' dialect
> >
> >That claim is unreal, and I ain't going for it. Thomas speaks
> >standardly far better than, i.e., Jesse Jackson or Saint Louis's own
> >Cedric the Entertainer, who have no trouble opening their mouths. And
> >mastering standard is no huge undertaking
>
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