Time to shift speculation gears from who will be the next U.S. Supreme Court nominee to who is Sonia Sotomayor and what does she stand for.
Here’s some interesting preliminary info. from the New York Times…
• Sotomayor, 54, would become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the court’s history. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
• Sotomayor has sat for the last 11 years on the federal appeals bench in Manhattan, a court known for its expertise in corporate and securities law (i.e., could come in handy as “Meltdown” cases start to roll in).
• She grew up in a Bronx housing project, a child of Puerto Rican parents, later attending Princeton, which she said it was like “a visitor landing in an alien country.” She never raised her hand in her first year there. “I was too embarrassed and too intimidated to ask questions,” Judge Sotomayor said.
• Judge Martin Glenn, who as a veteran appeals lawyer had appeared before her frequently, said Sotomayor always asked “questions that were penetrating but fair.”
• Her most high-profile case involved New Haven’s decision to toss out tests used to evaluate candidates for promotion in the fire department because there were no minority candidates at the top of the list.
As far as her views on civil justice matters, here's a review from the New York Times. Her joining in a ruling rejecting a class action against Wall St. banks raises some concern. Also, ScotusBlog did a four part series on some of her civil opinions (here, here, here, here). They say, “Most do not involve resolution of controversial or momentous legal questions — as illustrated by the fact that most were decided unanimously — but rather give some insight into the Judge’s day-to-day work on cases of some factual or other interest.” Many of these were matters of strict interpretation of statutes, and while she did uphold immunity in some cases, in one case she rejected a cost-benefit approach to environmental issues.
More to come!
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