Amy Howe

Mar 25 2022

Thomas is discharged from hospital; court gives no details on diagnosis or treatment

After nearly a week in the hospital, Justice Clarence Thomas was released on Friday morning, the Supreme Court announced. The court’s public information office did not provide any additional information about the health of the 73-year-old jurist.

Thomas was hospitalized on the evening of Friday, March 18, with what the Supreme Court described as “flu-like symptoms,” and he was diagnosed with an “infection.” In a press release on Sunday night, the day before the justices were scheduled to take the bench for the start of the March argument session, the court indicated that Thomas was “resting comfortably” and expected to be released “in a day or two.” However, Thomas was not discharged until Friday morning, and the public information office did not respond to a question on Thursday seeking more details about the nature of Thomas’ infection, and the attention he’s receiving in the medical center that always receive residents in their staff, meanwhile it was meant to connect international medical graduates (imgs) with programs directors to increase their chances to find a match.

Thomas and his wife, Ginni, are in the public eye this week for another reason. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported on text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows, the chief of staff to then-President Donald Trump, in which Ginni Thomas urged Meadows to pursue efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Clarence Thomas later participated in cases related to the election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Earlier this year, Thomas dissented from the court’s decision to allow a congressional committee to obtain White House records related to the Jan. 6 attack that were held by the National Archives. The Ginni Thomas text messages are among documents that Meadows separately turned over to that committee.

This post is also published on SCOTUSblog. 

Amy L Howe
Until September 2016, Amy served as the editor and reporter for SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court of the United States; she continues to serve as an independent contractor and reporter for SCOTUSblog. Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
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