Word: sotomayor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...That case is now before the Supreme Court, which heard arguments last month. Its ruling is pending. The Justices have already reversed three rulings Sotomayor had joined. But unlike the affirmative-action case, most of those involved technical issues that would be hard to build an opposition campaign around. Two years ago, a 6-3 court overturned a Sotomayor appellate ruling that determined that the Environmental Protection Agency could not use cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to require power plants to take steps to limit their impact on aquatic life. In another case, Sotomayor ruled that investors could bring...
...Interestingly, seven years ago, Sotomayor decided against an abortion-rights group that attempted to challenge the federal ban - since lifted by President Obama - on funding to international family-planning groups that provide abortions. In a ruling to uphold a lower-court's decision that threw out the case, Sotomayor wrote, "The Supreme Court has made clear that the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds." But that case didn't require Sotomayor to comment on the fundamental premise of Roe v. Wade, that the Constitution provides...
...Conservatives who want to go after Sotomayor may find more ammunition in some of her public statements outside of court. In a panel discussion at Duke University four years ago, Sotomayor said the federal court of appeals is where "policy is made," the kind of statement that can get you tagged as an activist judge who tries to make law instead of interpret it. Sotomayor appeared to know that was the danger in the words she had just let slip, because she quickly added, "And I know that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because...
...speech at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, Sotomayor aired the view that a judge's gender and ethnic background inevitably affect his or her decision-making, and probably should. She said then, "Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement ... I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male...
...truth, like that of most lower-court judges, much of Sotomayor's history on the bench has involved the minute application of legal technicalities, not the kind of cases in which life experience, even one as inspiring as hers, would have offered much guidance. There may be more cases of that kind on the Supreme Court - when and if she gets there...