Clarence Thomas says precedence might not determine cases on upcoming supreme court docket

Settled legal precedent in the US is not “gospel” and in some instances may have been “something somebody dreamt up and others went along with”, the US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has said.

Thomas – part of the conservative supermajority that has taken hold of the supreme court over Donald Trump’s two presidencies – delivered those comments Thursday at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in Washington DC, ABC News and other outlets reported. His remarks preceded the nine-month term that the supreme court is scheduled to begin on 6 October.

“I don’t think that … any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel,” Thomas said during the rare public appearance, invoking a term which in a religious context is often used to refer to the word of God. “And I do give perspective to the precedent. But … the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition, and our country and our laws, and be based on something – not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”

Among the various cases Thomas and his colleagues are expected to weigh in on is a request to overturn the 2015 Obergefell supreme court decision that legalized marriage for same-sex couples nationwide. Other cases being mulled by the supreme court for its 2025-2026 term involve tariffs, trans rights, campaign finance law, religious rights and capital punishment.

Thomas was in the 5-4 minority that voted against the Obergefell decision.

Trump’s first presidency yielded him three supreme court picks that gave the panel a conservative supermajority which has frequently ruled in his favor after he returned to the White House in January.

In June 2022, as Joe Biden’s presidency interrupted Trump’s terms, that conservative supermajority also struck down the federal abortion rights which had been established decades earlier by the Roe v Wade supreme court precedent. Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in which he urged the court to “reconsider all … substantive due process precedents”, including in Obergefell as well as cases involving rights to contraception and same-sex intimacy.

Thomas reportedly told those listening to him at the Catholic University that he feels no obligation to hew to precedent “if I find it doesn’t make any sense”.

“I think we should demand that, no matter what the case is, that it has more than just a simple theoretical basis,” Thomas said. If it’s “totally stupid, and that’s what they’ve decided, you don’t go along with it just because it’s decided”.

He further outlined his belief that some supreme court justices have stuck to prior rulings as if they were passengers on a train without taking time to see who was driving the locomotive.

“You could go up to the engine room and find that it’s an orangutan driving,” Thomas said, according to the legal news website Above the Law. “And you’re going to follow that? I think we owe our fellow citizens more than that.”

Democrats had asked a judicial policymaking body to refer Thomas, a darling of the US political right, to the justice department after he failed to close gifts and travel provided by a wealthy conservative benefactor. But the US judicial conference rejected that request in early January.