Clarence Thomas ruling threatens mail voting.
Slate • • nation
Key Points:
- The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in USPS v. Konan that Americans cannot sue the Postal Service for damages in federal court when mail carriers intentionally destroy or withhold mail, effectively granting the Postal Service immunity in such cases.
- The case involved Lebene Konan, who alleged that USPS carriers refused to deliver mail intentionally due to racial bias; the lower 5th Circuit Court had allowed suits for intentional misconduct, but the Supreme Court majority reversed this.
- Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion reinterpreted statutory terms “loss” and “miscarriage” to include intentional withholding or destruction of mail, a reasoning sharply criticized by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissent as a distortion of language and legislative intent.
- This ruling raises significant
