Justice Thomas Forces Supreme Court to Probe Obama's Citizenship
Afro America Newspaper , News Report, James Wright, Posted: Dec 04, 2008
(December 3, 2008) - In a highly unusual move, U.S. Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has asked his colleagues on the court to consider the request of an East Brunswick, N.J. attorney who has filed a lawsuit challenging President-elect Barack Obama’s status as a United States citizen.
Thomas’s action took place after Justice David Souter had rejected a petition known as an application for a stay of writ of certiorari that asked the court to prevent the meeting of the Electoral College on Dec. 15, which will certify Obama as the 44th president of the United States and its first African-American president.
The court has scheduled a Dec. 5 conference on the writ -- just 10 days before the Electoral College meets.
The high court’s only African American is bringing the matter to his colleagues as a result of the writ that was filed by attorney Leo Donofrio. Donofrio sued the New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Wells, contending that Obama was not qualified to be on the state’s presidential ballot because of Donofrio’s own questions about Obama citizenship.
Donofrio is a retired lawyer who identifies himself as a “citizen’s advocate.” The AFRO learned that he is a contributor to naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com, a Web site that raises questions about Obama’s citizenship.
Calls made to Donofrio’s residence were not returned to the AFRO by press time.
Donofrio is questioning Obama’s citizenship because the former Illinois senator, whose mom was from Kansas, was born in Hawaii and his father was a Kenyan national. Therefore, Donofrio argues, Obama’s dual citizenship does not make Obama “a natural born citizen” as required by Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution, which states:
“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President…”
Donofrio had initially tried to remove the names not only of Obama, but also the names of Republican Party presidential nominee John McCain and Socialist Workers’ Party Roger Calero from appearing on the Nov. 4 general election ballot in his home state of New Jersey.
McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a U.S. possession. Calero would be ineligible to be president because he was born in Nicaragua.
After his efforts were unsuccessful in the New Jersey court system, he decided to take his case to a higher level.
On Nov. 6, Souter denied the stay. Donofrio, following the rules of the procedure for the Supreme Court, re-submitted the application as an emergency stay in accordance to Rule 22, which states, in part, that an emergency stay can be given to another justice, which is the choice of the petitioner.
Donofrio’s choice was Thomas. He submitted the emergency stay to Thomas’s office on Nov. 14. Thomas accepted the application on Nov. 19 and on that day, submitted it for consideration by his eight colleagues - known as a conference - and scheduled it for Dec. 5.
On Nov. 26, a supplemental brief was filed by Donofrio to the clerk’s office of the Supreme Court. A letter to the court explaining the reason for the emergency stay was filed on Dec. 1 at the clerk’s office.
Thomas’s actions were rare because, by custom, when a justice rejects a petition from his own circuit, the matter is dead. Even if, as can be the case under Rule 22, the matter can be submitted to another justice for consideration, that justice out of respect, will reject it also, said Trevor Morrison, a professor of law at Columbia University School of Law.
Morrison said that Thomas’s actions are once in a decade. “When that does happen, the case has to be of an extraordinary nature and this does not fit that circumstance,” he said. “My guess would be that Thomas accepted the case so it would go before the conference where it will likely be denied. If Thomas denied the petition, then Donofrio would be free to go to the other justices for their consideration. “This way, I would guess, the matter would be done with. Petitions of Donofrio’s types are hardly ever granted.”
Traditionally, justices do not respond to media queries, according to a spokesman from the Supreme Court Public Information Office.
Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 and has been one of its most conservative members.
Before his ascension to the court, he was appointed by Bush to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Earlier, he served as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - appointed by President Reagan - and worked various jobs under former Republican Sen. John Danforth.
It would take a simple majority of five justices to put Donofrio’s emergency stay on the oral argument docket. Because it is an emergency by design, the argument would take place within days.
Donofrio wants the court to order the Electoral College to postpone its Dec. 15 proceedings until it rules on the Obama citizenship. He is using the 2000 case Bush vs. Gore case as precedent, arguing that it is of such compelling national interest that it should be given priority over other cases on the court’s docket.
“The same conditions apply here,” Donofrio said in his letter to the court, “as the clock is ticking down to Dec. 15, the day for the Electoral College to meet.”
Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at Washington’s Brookings Institution, who is an expert on immigration, said that the Donofrio matter is “going nowhere.”
“There is no way that anyone can argue about whether Barack Obama is a citizen,” Singer said. “In this country, we have a system known as jus soli or birthright by citizenship. You are a citizen by being born on American soil and he (Obama) was born in Hawaii.”
Singer said that Donofrio’s argument that Obama’s father was a Kenyan national does not matter because citizenship is not based on parentage, but on where someone was born.
“This is the issue that some people have with illegal aliens in our country,” she said. “Children of illegal aliens, if they are born in the United States, are U.S. citizens. That is in the U.S. Constitution.”
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User Comments
Joan Paul on Dec 10, 2008 at 10:54:28 said:
Why are we not seeing any of this in the "regular" media? Why has no one commented on the Friday conference of the second suit on the same matter in SCOTUS?
What if the Electoral College doesn't certify the election?
Ross L. Gillum on Dec 05, 2008 at 16:35:18 said:
This is for James...Orleans
Please tell me where you found the quote from Chief Justice John Jay? I have checked several sources and can't find it. I want to deliver it to the Justices on the Supreme Court to consider as they review the Obama cases.
Please email me at:
rlgillum@gmail.com
Thank you so much.
RLG
Jerry Abbott on Dec 05, 2008 at 09:50:10 said:
The "birth certificate" to which the Obama campaign, FactCheck, PolitiFact, and various Hawaii state officials have referred is a short, computer-generated form called a "certification of live birth" (abbreviated COLB). In 1961, Hawaii was giving these to babies born abroad as well as to babies born in Hawaii, and therefore a COLB is not proof of natural born citizenship. Anyone who states to the contrary is mistaken.
Obama has NOT released a certified copy of his original, signed, long form Certificate of Birth. Note the word Certificate, as opposed to Certification. This longer form contains the signatures of parents and the attending doctor, thumb-prints, information about blood-types, and sometimes lists natal medical treatments given to the baby. The CERTIFICATE of birth is a reasonable proof of the actual location of birth. The CERTIFICATION of live birth is not such proof.
Obama's supporters have been trying to cause confusion over which document is which, and about which document proves what, ever since this controversy began. Many have been deceived. Some, however, haven't been.
Furthermore, there are TWO challenges to Obama's citizenship status, not only the one about where he was really born. The other one concerns whether Obama gave up his prior country citizenships when he became a citizen of Indonesia through his adoption by his mother's 2nd husband, Lolo Soetoro.
After Obama proves that he was indeed born in Hawaii, assuming he can do so, he must further prove that he has retained natural born US citizenship despite his becoming a citizen in a foreign country that does not allow dual citizenships. That would appear to be a rather difficult thing to do.
Why is this important? After all, it has become clear that Ann Dunham wanted and intended for her baby to be born on US territory, so that "Barry Obama" would be entitled to the privileges of US citizenship. And Obama has been acting lately as if he were "an American at heart," even if he isn't one of us legally.
It's important because the law is the law, and when people bitterly contend an issue, the law must be followed TO THE LETTER.
Whatever Ann Dunham might have wished or intended, the FACT may be that Obama was born in Kenya, and, if so, then he is not a natural born US citizen.
However near Ms. Dunham might have been to her 19th birthday, the FACT is that she was 18 years old when "Barry Obama" was born, and therefore she was not legally eligible, under the laws of that time, to transmit US citizenship to her son.
And whatever Mr. Barack Obama's personal feelings are toward America, and no matter what loyalties he may really have, the FACT is that he has been a citizen of Indonesia and might, therefore, have forsaken whatever prior citizenships he might have had by this adoption by Mr. Soetoro.
If an exception is made for Obama, if the letter of the law isn't followed, then a legal precedent will have been made, where by a larger, more egregious breech of our Constitution can be justified in some other case at some later time. If that goes on long enough, one day an enemy foreign power will discover that they don't really have to win a war with the United States. All they will need to do is send one of their soldiers to win one of our presidential elections, and then they'll be able to conquer us with our own military forces.
Be very suspicious of anyone who tries to make it seem as if the question of Obama's citizenship is based on that of his father. It isn't. It's based on an uncertainty over where Obama really was born, and there is no certainty that he was born in Hawaii because several of Obama's relatives in Kenya have given videotaped eyewitness testimony that Obama was born in their presence, in Mombasa, Kenya, in 1961. If Obama was born in Hawaii, then all those proud-as-can-be relatives of his in Kenya are lying.
Robert Stift on Dec 05, 2008 at 07:10:18 said:
This matter will not be ripe for judicial review until the Electorial College says that Obama is elected! The, the proper remedy is to seek an injunction against Obama taking the oath until he proves his natural born status.
Robert Stift on Dec 05, 2008 at 06:44:37 said:
I believe that the petition, as submitted, is not what it should be. I don't think that this matter is yet ripe for judicial review. It will become so only once the Electorial College formally declares Mr. Obama the President-Elect on Dec. 15th. The proper remedy at that time will be an application for an injunction against Mr. Obama personally from taking the oath of office. If the issue is not settled by Jan. 20th Mr. Bidden will first be sworn in as Vice-President and then as Acting President.
Tex on Dec 05, 2008 at 06:32:24 said:
I don\'t agree that Justice Thomas is an African American.
I was born in GA an I consider Justice Thomas an American with a African heritage.
Quite a bit of diffrence. Their is no doubt in my mind that Justice Thomas is as much an Anmerican as I am with a Europen heritage.
Tex www.dixhistory.com
Thomas on Dec 05, 2008 at 01:01:02 said:
We all have read the allegations regarding Obamas citezenship, "He was born in Kenya", "He is an Indonesian citezen", "His mother not being elligible", and the whole fake birth certificate thing. The point that Donofrio wants to make is to question the established assumption that the bought-&-paid for media is blackballing. Why don't people question the media? All of our news that we recieve on our televisions is sterilized, sanitized, weeded through, and made into a crisis slurry that we eat out of a trough because we don't know any better! There is a saying that covers this; "The computer is your friend. You know this because the computer tells you so, 'cause the computer is your friend" Please wake up America! This is getting to the point that we are becoming sheeple. The wolves are herding you to the slaughter. The future is looking grim for the American way of life. We, as a country, will fall if we don't rise up, open our eyes, cast off our chains, and demand the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Stop selling off your rights for more slurry! Wake up!
Valeriasusan on Dec 04, 2008 at 17:51:00 said:
SCOTUS should probe O.B.'s dual American-Indonesian citizenship status. Without his true citizen status revealed, the DNC and Mr Obama have pulled off a successful coup d tat that once SCOTUS closes the case, no one in the US can legally challange.
Thalightguy on Dec 04, 2008 at 15:29:19 said:
Do you know who John Jay was he was the first U.S. Surpeme Court Justice this a letter he wrote to George Washington back in 1787.
New York 25 July 1787
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to
the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to
declare expresly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor
devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
James Orleans on Dec 04, 2008 at 13:38:42 said:
I believe the author of this article has confused "citizen" and "natural born citizen". The point made at the end of the article is indeed true, i.e. one only needs to be born in America to be a citizen, however, according to Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, the President must be a "natural born citizen". Since Obama was born with dual citizenship due to his British then Kenyan father, his "natural born" status may be in question as a matter of law.
-->And the Constitution and the Presidency of the United States is no small matter of law.