Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas publicly complained about the high court’s decision to “intervene at the request of a convicted murderer.”
On Monday, the SCOTUS intervened on behalf of death row defendant, Gary Richard Whitton, who was convicted of murder by a jury and sentenced to death — though it was later revealed that the jury was not told that testimony from a jailed witness against him was false.
Although the SCOTUS intervention “won’t help Whitton in the end,” Thomas said the court “routinely declines to provide relief to law-abiding Americans when it would actually matter, even after lower courts conspicuously flout this Court’s precedents in ruling against them.”
According to MS Now, Thomas called it “unfortunate that the Court chose to intervene at the request of a convicted murderer to correct” the appeals court’s “inconsequential foot fault.”
From someone who accepted millions in improper gifts, dodged his reporting requirements, won’t allow proper fact-finding, and may have failed to pay taxes, his “law-abiding” schtick is a bit ripe. https://t.co/WNPyVO3RtS
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) June 2, 2026
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) responded to Thomas’s remarks on social media: “From someone who accepted millions in improper gifts, dodged his reporting requirements, won’t allow proper fact-finding, and may have failed to pay taxes, his ‘law-abiding’ schtick is a bit ripe.”
[NOTE: Whitehouse has been a leading critic of Thomas, accusing him of a “brazen disregard” for ethics laws by accepting undisclosed gifts from Republican billionaire Harlan Crow. With Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Whitehouse has demanded investigations into potential tax and ethics violations, including “willful” failure to report luxury travel and property deals by Thomas.]