One day in the early 1990s, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas telephoned Leah Ward Sears to introduce himself. She was a rising star in Georgia's legal community, a relatively liberal black woman on the state's conservative Supreme Court. Thomas had read about political attacks against Sears and called to say he didn't like it.
"It affected her that he would take the time to comfort her in that situation," said Bernard Taylor, an Atlanta lawyer and longtime friend of Sears, now chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and a potential nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. "They're still friends."
Many years after that phone call, the friendship that has endured makes for one of the more intriguing subplots of President Obama's upcoming decision. In naming Souter's replacement, Obama is likely to choose a liberal jurist. Some in the civil rights community are hoping that person will be an African American, such as Sears, to soothe the lingering bitterness over the appointment of Thomas, a conservative who is the court's only black justice.
But if the choice does turn out to be Sears, the nation's first black president would be nominating someone whose closest friend on the court is the very person civil rights activists have accused of failing to represent African Americans' interests.
Sears's relationship with Thomas is anchored in their home towns in southeastern Georgia and the rough roads they both took to the top levels of the American judiciary. Sears, 53, has been called a liberal, activist judge by conservatives who ran hard against her. Thomas, 60, has been accused by African Americans of betraying them with his conservative views. They have both spent their careers beating back critics.
This article probably ended any hope she had of the nomination. The idea of putting a black person on the court who actually likes Clarence Thomas would just freak the lefties out.
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