Worst SCOTUS justice

[lfromnj]

Voted for Alito. Thomas is a total hack but he occasionally gets it right on cases that don't have a strict ideological split (this happened more when his buddy Scalia was still around since Scalia was actually pretty good on some free speech and civil liberties issues.) Alito is not just a complete hack he's also "all authoritarian all the time."

Opposite choice for me, Sotomayor.
Ginsburg isnt a pure political hack either.

[lfromnj]

The first to come to mind was Alito and after thinking a little more about it, I'm sticking with him. I think he has the fewest redeemable qualities. Thomas and Kavanaugh have concerns, on and off bench, but Alito is the worst when it comes to what affects average American lives.

What redeeming qualities does Thomas even have? Is it that Thomas and Gorsuch occasionally strike down racial gerrymanders?

It's that Thomas actually has an ideology that isnt being a partisan hack unlike Alito or Sotomayor.

[lfromnj]

The first to come to mind was Alito and after thinking a little more about it, I'm sticking with him. I think he has the fewest redeemable qualities. Thomas and Kavanaugh have concerns, on and off bench, but Alito is the worst when it comes to what affects average American lives.

What redeeming qualities does Thomas even have? Is it that Thomas and Gorsuch occasionally strike down racial gerrymanders?

Thomas is the only member of the court who could be reasonably called "anti-elitist." Exclusively among the court, Justice Thomas will look for and routinely hire clerks outside of the Ivy League. He's on record saying that he doesn't believe that the top performers at high-tier state schools and "lesser" T-14 schools are any worse than the upper tier at Harvard and Yale, which provide the vast majority of SCOTUS clerks for everyone else. Personally he's very open. He came and taught one of my classes in law school for a week and let us talk/ask about whatever we wanted. At the end, he provided his information in case we ever wanted to come by his house in the "Sovereign State of Georgia."

His judicial philosophy is the most unique on the court. Thomas does not believe that stare decisis is a principle to be given much (if any) weight. If he believes a line of cases has been wrongly decided, his opinion is that they should all go even if it means reversing years of precedent. Look at the topic in Constitution and Law on whether Roe v. Wade is good legal reasoning; the vast majority of voters agreed that it is not, but many posters believed that it was too precedential or necessary to change. That's exactly the sort of thought that Thomas regularly crusades against. If the law shouldn't have been used to interpret something X way, reverse it. It doesn't matter how old it was. He's well-known for wanting to reverse the whole Substantive Due Process (which really really is an abomination that nobody understands) line of cases all the way back to Slaughterhouse in 1873 and restore any rights lost under that where they were supposed to be , the Privileges and Immunities clause. I disagree with his reasoning a lot, but I think its helpful to have at least one justice willing to prod the others to get rid of bad caselaw despite stare decisis. Certainly better than Alito, who is an uncreative executive branch hack at best.

As for the worst justice, its easily Sotomayor. She has absolutely nothing to recommend her. Her writing quality is poor, she's showed a willingness to be influenced by disapproving press on the left, and she is unquestionably the biggest partisan hack on the court. Its such a shame, because Obama's other appointee Kagan is one of the best members of the court.

To go on further is that Thomas is very interesting on the VRA itself, he believes the VRA means that no race may be used at all in redistricting, This is definitely not something im sure is case law but I think congress should codify that.