Word: legalism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...same conclusion in deciding cases." Sotomayor concludes, "I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experience, would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion" - and then defines "better" as a "more compassionate, and caring conclusion." She also recommends a 1993 article in Judicature, a legal journal, that found that women judges reached different conclusions from men in employment-discrimination cases but not in obscenity or criminal cases. The claim that gender makes a difference in some categories of cases is widely accepted today, but academic theorizing about women's essential differences still remains hotly debated...
...well be challenges to the death penalty, for example, on the grounds that it is imposed in a racially discriminatory way. The court rejected that claim in 1987, but Sotomayor might be sympathetic to it. In 1981, as a member of the board of directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, she was part of a committee that recommended that the fund oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York State on the grounds that "capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society...
...Sotomayor's more liberal inclinations in immigration cases may also make a difference on a court that will increasingly have to wrestle with legal distinctions in the U.S. between citizens and aliens. As Obama disappoints civil libertarians by reaffirming aspects of President Bush's antiterrorism policies - including the claim that terrorism detainees held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts - some of these policies may reach the Supreme Court. Sotomayor could prove skeptical of the claim often made by the government that the rights of aliens differ sharply from the rights...
When Barack Obama sought the presidency, he pledged to reverse the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy preventing gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military. Yet on Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a gay Ohio soldier's challenge to the law - with the legal backing of none other than the Obama Administration...
...absence of any criminal convictions, four families of people who died in Omagh launched a civil action in 2000 against the Real IRA as an organization as well as five individuals they believed were chiefly responsible for the bombing. Using their own savings, donations and legal aid, they raised about $2.4 million to fund their case, with more families coming on board later. Their subsequent claim for more than $15 million in damages was based on the long-term psychological impacts of the atrocity - posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and alcoholism - which continue to affect many of the victims' family members...