Sotomayor, so far

I have to say, I have been pretty satisfied, so far, with Sonia Sotomayor on the bench. Not that it has done any good, as the conservative lean of the court did not change with her addition. The time to prevent the stacking of the court was during George W. Bush’s term and our Dems failed to stand up. Oh well. Water. Bridge.

That being said, I’ve got to give credit where it is due as, at least for now, she appears to be a solid replacement for David Souter,

The most recent example, is of course, Monday’s decision wherein even activity that may actually push a terrorist organization to utilizing peaceful means to get themselves heard, instead of say, blowing up a train, has been judged by six members of our Supreme Court as supporting terrorist activity. In this case, Sotomayor sided with the minority. Thank goodness.

Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step of reading his dissent aloud in the courtroom. ”Not even the ‘serious and deadly problem’ of international terrorism can require automatic forfeiture of First Amendment rights,” he said. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.

There is also her dissent in the Miranda case decided earlier this month.

For Justice Sotomayor, deciding to make suspects speak to have the right to remain silent was a step too far. Sotomayor, the court’s newest member, wrote a strongly worded dissent for the court’s liberals, saying the majority’s decision “turns Miranda upside down.” “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent — which counterintuitively requires them to speak,” she said. “At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded.”

She was joined in her dissent by Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Of course, liberals are still in the minority on the bench, so her votes, while good, still haven’t stopped the rights-stripping corporate-loving train wreck that is our current SCOTUS. In most cases, that is. In an article reviewing some of Sotomayor’s decisions so far, we read of one liberal victory:

In this term’s other major crime and punishment case, the liberal bloc prevailed with a key vote from Sotomayor. She joined a 5-4 opinion holding that it is cruel and unusual punishment to impose a life prison term without possible parole on an offender who is younger than 18 and who did not commit murder.

The article above ends:

June can be a trying time at the court. The justices need to resolve more than two dozen pending cases by the end of the month. They include a test of the 2nd Amendment and its right to bear arms, and a college campus dispute in which the rights of Christian students and gay students are in conflict.

So, stay tuned. Only time will tell.

Sotomayor Speaks, Thomas Timid

I love it!  Looks like Sonia Sotomayor is not going to be a wallflower. 

In just an hour, the court’s newest justice asked more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked over the course of several years. Sotomayor’s aggressive role in a Fifth Amendment case, in turn, underscored how she could put her own stamp on a court whose 2009-2010 docket is still taking shape.

[Info on cases before the supreme court here]

In last month’s hearing, as well as the first case Monday, involving so-called Miranda rights to stay silent unless represented by an attorney, Sotomayor proved herself a dogged questioner. She spoke nearly three dozen times Monday during the argument in the case called Maryland v. Shatzer.

“Could I have a clarification of the facts for a moment?” Sotomayor asked at one point, and then pursued the attorney with four specific follow-up questions.

Thomas, as is his habit, was silent throughout the morning session.

Oh, snap!

I’d be interested to know how she stacks up against the other justices. Clarence Thomas almost never speaks, and he almost always echoes Anthony Scalia in the opinions, so the fact that Sotomayor asked more questions than Thomas isn’t as stunning as it sounds. Still, the snark in the article is delicious, yes?

I’m waiting to see the articles from the right that rail on her for being pushy.  3…2…1…

Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, Judge Sotomayor, blah, blah, yada, yada

I am currently going through an extended supervisor training at work and on Tuesday we had  a session called “Behavior-Based Interviewing.”  Prior to the interview HR has ostensibly screened the candidate for skill set, so that is  not the purpose of the interview.  We were taught how to ask open-ended questions designed to elicit lengthy, and potentially revealing, questions of the candidate.   We were warned: “If you are doing more talking than the candidate, you’re doing it wrong.”

This morning’s L.A. Times Top of the Ticket blog: Sotomayor hearing word-count: Senators out-talk her two-to-one

As of Wednesday morning, the senators had spouted 50,082 words.

In response Judge Sotomayor had been able to utter barely 20,000 words (20,728, to be exact).

Monday was the worst day: Senators 23,175  Sotomayor 942.

Some “hearing.” Maybe they ought to call it a “talking.”

Sotomayor: Deference to authority?

While others are debating her pro-choice chops (not much evidence one way or the other out there), she does have an interesting record of giving a bit too much deference to authority. This particular ruling is especially galling to me as a free speech advocate.

The ruling in this case has come under heavy criticism from some civil libertarians. Some say this case presents a solid rationale for rejecting Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the seat of retiring Justice David Souter.

“The continual expansion of the authority of school officials over student speech teaches a foul lesson to these future citizens,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the New Britain Herald. “I would prefer some obnoxious speech [rather] than teaching students that they must please government officials if they want special benefits or opportunities.”

I’ll do more investigating. But just wanted to post this.

Sotomayor

So, it appears the Republicans have been given their talking points about Sotomayor:  She’s ruled by her feelings and can’t be trusted to be a level-headed jurist. Oh puh-leeze.  Riverdaughter rips the meme to shreds.

I haven’t had a good opportunity to read much about Sonia Sotomayor’s qualifications yet, but what I have read about her seems favorable so far.  However, I am withholding judgement until I have more time to do some research. On the other hand, the Republicans are wasting no time in jumping in to oppose Obama’s nominee. You recall that they never intended to do anything but oppose his nominee, right? They said as much.  RNC’s Steele got started on the “empathy” meme last week.

Mr. Steele said Republicans don’t oppose empathy, but don’t want a justice “who may have a bad day or be overly sensitive to my condition.”

Huh. Maybe Obama shouldn’t have been so willing to let his staff, supporters, and himself play this very same card during the primary.

“I understand that Senator Clinton periodically, when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal,” Obama said.

“They’re just going to stick to their knitting,” he [Rahm Emmanuel] said.

And I will never forget Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s musing about Hillary Clinton’s tears in the wake of her victory in New Hampshire, and raising, for the first time, the meme that Hillary did not care about Black people:

Let’s hope this all doesn’t come back to bite Obama in the ass.