Here's the 2d article ~ this one is more 'court' than 'Sotomayor' oriented, but she certainly has been playing an active role ~ Sooz
Seven cases show differences among justices
Updated 2d 22h ago
By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
In seven cases so far this term, individual justices dissented or expressed concern as the Supreme Court majority refused to hear an appeal.
Case: Weise v. Casper
Date, background: Order issued Oct. 12, rejecting a petition from two people who were removed from a 2005 Denver speech by President Bush because their car displayed a bumper sticker that said, "No More Blood for Oil."
Dissenters and why: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Sonia Sotomayor, dissented, saying the court should have taken up the important First Amendment issue. They said they could not "see how reasonable public officials, or any staff or volunteers under their direction, could have viewed the bumper sticker as a permissible reason for depriving (the two people) of access to the event."
Case: Pitre v. Cain
Date, background: Oct. 18. Rejected a petition from a Louisiana state prisoner who stopped taking his HIV medication to protest a prison transfer and said he was then punished for his action with hard labor in 100-degree heat.
Dissenters and why: Sonia Sotomayor dissented alone, saying he had sufficiently claimed a violation of the Eighth Amendment protection from cruel and unusual punishment. She scoffed at the notion that the inmate caused all his troubles and said officials should not be able to coerce him to take medication through the threat of hard labor.
Case: Wong v. Smith
Date, background: Nov. 1. Denied California officials' appeal of a lower-court decision that a trial judge's comments about evidence coerced jurors to find a defendant guilty of sexual assault.
Dissenters and why: Samuel Alito, joined by John Roberts and Antonin Scalia, dissented, stressing that "For centuries, trial judges have enjoyed authority to comment on evidence."
Case: Harper v. Maverick Recording Co.
Date, background: Nov. 29. Rejected a petition from a 16-year-old girl found to have infringed copyright by downloading music files.
Dissenters and why: Alito dissented alone, noting that the lower court had said the teen could not raise an "innocent infringer" defense. He said her youth and lack of sophistication might have been relevant and that the high court should clarify the law.
Case: Gamache v. California
Date, background: Nov. 29. Rejected a petition from a death row prisoner whose jury was mistakenly shown a video (not admitted at trial) of him confessing to the crime; the lower court said the video did not prejudice jurors' sentence of death.
Dissenters and why: Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, wrote separately to stress that in disputes over whether a defendant has been harmed by such a mistake, it is the prosecutor's burden to show that an error did not hurt the defendant's case, rather than, as the lower state court suggested, the defendant who bears the burden of persuasion. Sotomayor said in this situation shifting the burden would not have changed the outcome.
Case: Williams v. Hobbs
Date, background: Dec. 6. Rejected a death row prisoner's appeal that he should get a new sentencing hearing because his lawyer failed to present evidence from his brutal childhood that might have gotten him life in prison rather than death.
Dissenters and why: Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg, dissented and focused on an appeals court's decision to allow Arkansas officials to object to the hearing on evidence from his childhood after it occurred, when officials initially had withheld any objection to the hearing before a district court judge. That judge found the defendant's rights had been violated and ordered a new sentencing. The appeals court then allowed the state to argue, successfully, that he should not have gotten that hearing in the first place. Sotomayor said such a stance "invites … states to manipulate federal habeas proceedings to their own strategic advantage at an unacceptable cost to justice."
Case: Allen v. Lawhorn
Date, background: Dec. 13. Rejected a petition by Alabama officials protesting a new sentencing hearing for a death row prisoner whose lawyer had waived his right to present a closing argument during the penalty phase; a lower court found the lawyer had given him ineffective assistance.
Dissenters and why: Scalia, joined by Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented, rejecting various scenarios lower-court judges had offered regarding closing statements that might have persuaded jurors to vote against the death sentence: "Alabama should not be barred from carrying out its judgment based on a federal court's lawless speculation."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... ents_N.htm