(Crossposted from The Free Speech Zone)
On the district court bench, Judge Sotomayor earned a reputation as a sharp, outspoken and fearless jurist, someone who does not let powerful interests bully, rush or cow her into a decision. “She does not have much patience for people trying to snow her,” said one lawyer in 1995, who had cases pending before the judge and asked not to be identified. “You can’t do it.”
In 2001, she gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”In her speech, at a conference on diversity, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion – often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor – that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor.
There you have it.
Plain as day.
She’s not allowed to say it, but I will, so let me see the best way to describe this judge…
LIBERAL!
She’s gonna have to hide it, her opinions on an abortion issue was just that the government can implement their policies of either anti-abortion or pro-choice on foreign countries that receive aid. So if the administration is pro-choice then fine, or if an administration is anti-abortion then fine, i’m biased on this issue but this shows compromising judgment and objectivity.
Fuck it, i’ll take it, no fucking way would she vote down Roe v. Wade. Good, grand, wonderful:
An opposition memo on Judge Sotomayor cites her ruling in a case about lawsuits against federal contractors to claim that she is “willing to expand constitutional rights beyond the text of the Constitution.” The case concerns an inmate who lived in a fifth-floor room while serving a federal prison sentence for securities fraud. He was allowed to use the elevator because of congestive heart failure, but when a guard had him climb the five flights, he had a heart attack, fell down the stairs and suffered an injury. He sued the company that ran the halfway house for the federal Bureau of Prisons. As part of the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor emphasized precedents that permitted suits against companies performing state government functions. The Supreme Court reversed Judge Sotomayor, ruling 5 to 4 that only individual agents, not corporations, may be sued for such violations. Justice Stevens – joined by Justices Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer – dissented.“Extending Bivens liability to reach private corporations furthers [its] overriding purpose: providing redress for violations of constitutional rights.”
(Bivens was a 1971 Supreme Court case that allowed some people whose rights have been violated by federal agents to sue.)
-Makesko v. Correctional Services Corporation, 2000
SOLD! A woman after my own heart!
The fact the guy in the case was in for securities fraud aside, she believes in the right to sue the pants off of private corporations that are hired to perform state functions if it violates a persons civil rights. Niiiiiice!
Some of Judge Sotomayor’s more prominent opinions on discrimination concern people with disabilities. In one case, Judge Sotomayor ruled that a law school graduate with a reading and learning disability was entitled to extra time in taking the bar exams. After the Supreme Court decided that people are not protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act if they can function normally by wearing glasses, taking medication or otherwise compensating for their disabilities, it told the Second Court to reconsider its decision in this case. Judge Sotomayor again found that the woman was disabled, and must be given accommodations, writing that test scores alone were not enough to diagnose a disability. Another case concerned a trucking company that rejected applicants who were taking some medications. Judge Sotomayor dissented from the majority, writing that Hunt, the company, had determined the applicants were “substantially limited in the major life activity of working,” and not, as the, majority found, merely “unsuited for long-distance driving of Hunt’s 40-ton trucks on irregular stressful schedules.”
“By its very nature, diagnosing a learning disability requires clinical judgment.”
-Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners
’nuff said, it’s all good.
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what?!
She will certainly reach a different conclusion and there’s nothing wrong with that. It should be celebrated; but to say that the decision will be better is just as pernicious as the prevailing sentiment that an old white male will reach a better decision.
I find this diary problematic. Every Puerto Rican women is what ?? The same? Pleeese.
I’m more interested in the facts then in what you think she’s likely to be like based on race. And I don’t think we know much about her politics yet.