Word: sotomayor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Judge Sonia Sotomayor may have been 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...
...America did," Sotomayor replied...
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...
...believe that my reputation is that I ask the hard questions, but I do it evenly for both sides," Sotomayor answered back, maintaining her calm, as ever, in the face of a line of questioning that some observers called patronizing...
Most lawyers know well Aristotle's famous phrase: The law is reason free from passion. This is the crux of the debate about what kind of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor would make: that judges should rule not from passion or personal bias but with reason and precedent. As she attempts to be confirmed, Sotomayor's greatest asset has proved to be her methodical demeanor, making the hearings reasonably free of passion, and her future, it would seem, free of much doubt...