After graduating from law school,Thomas entered private practice at Moulton,Bellingham,Longo &Mather,a law firm in Billings,Montana.[2] He became a senior partner there,where he specialized in commercial litigation[2] as well as government,bankruptcy and media law.[3]
Judge Thomas is the en banc coordinator for the Ninth Circuit,whose parliamentarian-type duties can affect the outcome of any case. "I've never known one of his rulings to be challenged," the Ninth Circuit's Chief Judge,Alex Kozinski,stated in 2010. "I think it's a tribute to his evenhandedness that he's been on the job for many years,and nobody wants a different en banc coordinator."[8]
Thomas authored the opinion in Nadarajah v. Gonzales,[11] a civil rights case in 2006 on a suspected Tamil Tiger immigrant.
Thomas was in the majority in Peruta v. San Diego,a 2016 ordinance that ruled that San Diego's restrictive gun policy was constitutional.[12][13]
On June 26,2020,Thomas ruled in favor of the Sierra Club,holding that the Department of Defense's decision to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to fund the border wall violates the Appropriations Clause.[14] On July 31,the ruling was effectively reversed in a 5–4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.[15]
On May 13,2021,Thomas ruled that an immigrant who arrived in the United States as a child does not need to have lawful permanent residency in order to derive citizenship from a parent who naturalized.[16]
Personal
Thomas is married to Martha Sheehy,a Billings attorney who has practiced law since 1988.[17]
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