Just did a quick Google Search.

 

The Nine?

Wasn't there a book published a while back about the inner workings of the Court that you recommended, or am I imagining things? I'm headed to the library after a while, and I'd like to see if there's a copy there.

 

"The Nine" by Jeff Toobin. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

From my reading of profiles of Sotomayor it seems she is sort of asocial, in a sense. In that regard, perhaps she is more like Souter than not.

 

Now that could be. I really don't know about all that. Justices personalities are usually sketched after a few years of observation.

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life." -- Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001

 

As a champion of identity politics, the left will love her.

 

What do you think she is saying there? Is there any context to add?

Sotomayor should not only be refused a seat on the USSC, she should be removed from the court of appeals.

What do you think she is saying there? Is there any context to add?

 

A better question from my standpoint would be hearing someone who supports her explain what they think she was saying. I think it means that her life experiences make her better qualified to judge then a white male. I also believe that had a white male said it he would have been immediately branded as racist and sexist.

 

What do you think?

 

With all that said I think that it's a foregone conclusion that she will be confirmed. I think that any pointed questions she gets will be used as illustrations by the left of how racist and sexist Republicans are (although it certainly wasn't the case when Clarence Thomas was attacked by the left). I just hope that the 4.5 conservatives on the court can outlast the infatuation many have with lefty principles and that when it is all over we are not in as poor shape as we were when Carter left office.

Here is the full clip of her discussion at Duke University on "making law":

 

 

Take it for what you will but whether it provides enough context or not it is longer than the :35 clip most are quoting.

Isn't the "violates the constitution" part subjective decision-making?

 

Shouldn't be but I guess it can be.

I found the text of her speech in 2001. The following is I think the excerpt that includes both before and after the statement about "a latino woman."

 

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

 

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. 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 not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, 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.

 

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

 

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

 

I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach. For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

 

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

 

The entire speech can be found at:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

 

Again, I'm not trying to deride her nomination or support her here. I'm trying to put out the data that many are quoting but while many may not have read or heard in a more wholistic setting. :thumb:

Here is the full clip of her discussion at Duke University on "making law":

 

 

Take it for what you will but whether it provides enough context or not it is longer than the :35 clip most are quoting.

 

That's the one that was posted in the very first post in this thread.

That's the one that was posted in the very first post in this thread.

 

Sorry. Thought the one in the first post was the :35 one. :thumb:

I found this from beliefnet interesting:

 

Nonetheless, it's interesting that in the two cases we know of that related partly to abortion, she took the position that pro-life groups would have wanted (albeit for reasons unrelated to Roe v. Wade). At a minimum, these cases would seem to indicate that, if she is pro-choice, she didn't let those views affect her view of the relevant law.

A better question from my standpoint would be hearing someone who supports her explain what they think she was saying. I think it means that her life experiences make her better qualified to judge then a white male. I also believe that had a white male said it he would have been immediately branded as racist and sexist.

 

What do you think?

 

With all that said I think that it's a foregone conclusion that she will be confirmed. I think that any pointed questions she gets will be used as illustrations by the left of how racist and sexist Republicans are (although it certainly wasn't the case when Clarence Thomas was attacked by the left). I just hope that the 4.5 conservatives on the court can outlast the infatuation many have with lefty principles and that when it is all over we are not in as poor shape as we were when Carter left office.

 

I found the text of her speech in 2001. The following is I think the excerpt that includes both before and after the statement about "a latino woman."

 

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males.

 

While I won't say I support her or wish her to be denied as I'm not smart enough to know enough about her, I will answer your question.

 

I think its either intentional or its ignorance that people have jumped on this quote without including or taking into account the true context. It doesn't seem hard to follow that she is saying in regards to sexual and racial discrimination that a female Latina would have more world experience than a 75 year old white guy. What's so hard to follow in that regards? I have no experience in this area and I'm a white guy. Should I be offended?

 

She didn't say she was a better judge because of being female and Latina. She said those two traits give her better life experience in cases involving those two issues.

But a judge shouldn't act based on their life experiences. A judge should rule based on the law and only the law. Being able to relate to one or more of the parties should have no bearing on the final outcome of a case.

But a judge shouldn't act based on their life experiences. A judge should rule based on the law and only the law. Being able to relate to one or more of the parties should have no bearing on the final outcome of a case.

 

Apparently not anymore.