Word: benchful
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...something of an exception. Like previous nominees, during her confirmation hearings she displayed some aspects of her judicial philosophy - but perhaps not all of them. Adopting a trope more often associated with conservatives than liberals, she said repeatedly that judges should simply apply the law, not legislate from the bench. "My judicial philosophy," she declared in her opening statement, is simple: "fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make law. It is to apply the law." And as if to dispel any impression that this was rhetorical boilerplate, Sotomayor returned to the same theme throughout...
Sotomayor's sincere opposition to judicial lawmaking should reassure conservatives who fear that she might be an empathy-driven activist intent on legislating from the bench and imposing her vision of identity politics on an unwilling nation. But is Sotomayor telling the whole story when she says Supreme Court Justices shouldn't - and don't - make policy? It's too bad that neither Sotomayor nor any of the Senators felt at liberty to say what many scholars and court observers believe to be true: Justices often legislate from the bench, and sometimes that's a good thing...
...couldn't Sotomayor acknowledge that Justices often legislate from the bench? She cited as her judicial hero Justice Benjamin Cardozo, who served on the Supreme Court from 1932 to 1938. Sotomayor praised Cardozo for his "great respect for precedent and his great respect ... and deference to the Legislative Branch." But Cardozo wasn't always an advocate of judicial deference. In his most famous book, The Nature of the Judicial Process, Cardozo called a chapter "The Judge as a Legislator." Like legislators, Cardozo wrote, judges must get their experience "from life itself," and when the law isn't clear, a judge...
...some of her speeches, Sotomayor seems to acknowledge that courts sometimes play a policymaking role. But her testimony and judicial opinions suggest that judges should avoid legislating from the bench at all costs. That should mollify those who worry that she will be swayed by empathy rather than the Constitution, but it's a less-than-complete description of how judges actually behave - or perhaps what she herself believes. At this point in our polarized judicial politics, it's too bad that Senators and Supreme Court nominees can't say in public what many of them recognize in private...
Perhaps the harshest line of questioning came from Graham, who, citing unnamed sources in a lawyer's almanac, alleged that Sotomayor had a reputation for being temperamental. "Here's what they said about you: 'She's a terror on the bench. She's temperamental, excitable, she seems angry. She's overall aggressive, not very judicial. She does not have a very good temperament. She abuses lawyers.'" Graham recounted. "When you look at the evaluation of the judges on the Second Circuit, you stand out like a sore thumb in terms of your temperament. What is your answer to these criticisms...