John Charles Thomas (born September 18, 1950)[1] is an American attorney and a former justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
We were not many years from the searing violence that scarred the nation during the days of the Civil Rights Movement; the Selma March, King's assassination, riots in the streets of major cities all were within recent memory.
In 1983, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, becoming the first African American and (being 32) the youngest person of any race to sit there.
In 2005, Thomas was named a member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which is based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
CAS is an independent arbitral institution created in 1983 to settle sports-related disputes involving drug violations and rules of international sports federations.