Today is day two of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing. (I have purposely avoided blogging about the whole "wise Latina" controversy; perhaps I will at a later date.)
If you'd like to read about Sotomayor's criminal justice decisions, you can do so by reading the reports filed under the "Criminal" heading here. (See especially this report from the Majority Staff of the Senate Judicicary Committee on her criminal justice record.)
You can also follow a liveblog of the hearing by the good folks at SCOTUSblog here.
Update: Day Three liveblog here.
2 comments:
Thanks for posting her CJ decisions to review Dr.
I saw where the International Association of Police Chiefs is supporting her.
Not saying anything about this instance, but I have always wondered whether groups like the IACP see someone like this as a sure-thing and make the endorsement quickly to be on the winning side--without doing much homework on his/her previous decisions.
I don't find many of those blogs helpful. I find a general characterization of her record not very informative. I simply do not have a sense of how controversial many of her opinions/cases are to be able to assess her ideas. If many cases are relatively proscriptive then does her overall record really mean much? I really have no sense how this stuff works. What I would really like to see is a more thoughtful analysis of her more controversial opinions. For examples, I posted a while back that something like 3 of her 5 or 6 opinions (I don't recall the exact numbers) have been reversed by the Supreme Court. How does that compare to other judges with similar caseloads? Is that considered a lot or a little? It sounds like alot, but again, the N's are small. Maybe some of our attorneys can provide a perspective on this. It is really an analysis of the more controversial opinions/issues that are going to define us in the next 40 that should be considered. Roberts, for example, got hammered on his opinions on abortion. I didn’t particularly find the questions offensive (as long as we ask everyone the same type of questions) and Roberts responded that he generally felt this case law was settled regardless of his personal opinions (that is my recollection of the spirit of what he said). One reason I think the Ricci case matters tremendously is that unlike abortion, Affirmative Action cases may very well be a defining area of case law the court will take up over the next 40 years....maybe like "due process" was to the Warren Court. Bottom line, a very general review of her record may obscure that more important issues. I would like to know more about her record from that perspective.
Scoobs Out.
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