Free Speech

Most Supreme Court dissents fade into obscurity. Every so often, however, a dissent transcends the case before the Court and raises a much larger question about the direction of our legal system. Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent dissent in Whitton v. Dixon is one of those opinions. Whitton itself was a death penalty case. The Court summarily vacated a lower-court decision based on what Justice Thomas called an “inconsequential foot fault .” But . . .