Article snippet: Justice Clarence Thomas, who is known for his silence, shocked spectators in court Wednesday when he asked a question during arguments in a dispute over racial discrimination in jury selection. Thomas's question, which marks the second time in a decade the court's leading conservative has spoken during arguments, came in the case of a Mississippi man who has been tried six times for the 1996 murders of four people inside a furniture store. Thomas last spoke in February 2016 when he asked several questions during oral arguments in a gun rights case. On Wednesday, Thomas waited until the very end of the hour-long arguments to ask if the defense for defendant Curtis Flowers, who is black, had struck any jurors from the sixth trial and, if so, what their races were. Flowers’s attorney, Sheri Lynn Johnson, had just spent half the hour arguing that the prosecutor had relentlessly worked to keep black jurors from sitting on her client's trials and had just told the court she planned to waive a final rebuttal when Thomas spoke up. She seemed surprised that the question had come from Thomas, but told him the defense had, in fact, also struck jurors and that they were white. “But I would add that the motive, her motivation is not the question here. The question is the motivation of Doug Evans,” she said, referring to the prosecutor. During jury selection, both sides in a case are allowed to strike a limited number of potential jurors without giving a reason, but under the ... Link to the full article to read more