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PostPosted: 12/29/10 11:46 am • # 1 
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I had bookmarked a couple of articles about Justice Sotomayor earlier this week ... and then promptly forgot to post them ~ Image ~ but now that I've been reminded, I'll post them here ~ Sooz

SOTOMAYOR DOESN'T DISAPPOINT.... There were some concerns last year that Sonia Sotomayor might prove to be a disappointment. David Souter had, thankfully, proven to be one of the Supreme Court's reliable center-left votes, and many feared that Sotomayor may actually move the high court slightly to the right.

It's obviously early in the justice's career, but we can start to appreciate Sotomayor's approach to her position based on what we've seen so far. The NYT's Adam Liptak noted this week that she "has completely dispelled the fear on the left" about her judicial ideology.

Quote:

[F]or anyone looking for insight into the justices, there was much more information to be gleaned from another genre of judicial writing. In the last three months, the court has turned down thousands of appeals, almost always without comment. On seven occasions, though, at least one justice had something to say about the court's decision not to hear a case.

Such writings are completely discretionary, and they open a window onto the author's passions. They are also a good way to keep track of the divisions on the court.

An ideological fault line ran through those seven opinions. Not a single member of the court's four-member liberal wing joined any of the three opinions written by a conservative justice. And not a single member of the court's four-member conservative wing joined any of the four opinions written by a liberal justice. [...]

Justice Sotomayor wrote three of the opinions, more than any other justice, and all concerned the rights of criminal defendants or prisoners.

The piece is worth reading for the details, but given her brief tenure, there can be no doubt that Sotomayor is one of the high court's more forceful progressive voices.

President Obama appears to have chosen wisely. Here's hoping his chances to nominate others aren't over yet.

—Steve Benen 3:55 PM December 29, 2010

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archiv ... 027306.php


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PostPosted: 12/29/10 12:37 pm • # 2 
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Here's the first of the 'couple of articles' I mentioned in my op comments ~ Sooz





Sotomayor protests court's refusal of appeals
Updated 2d 17h ago


WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has set herself apart from colleagues with her fervent statements protesting the majority's refusal to take some appeals, particularly involving prisoners.

Each month, the justices spurn hundreds of petitions from people who have lost in lower courts, and rarely does an individual justice go public with concern about the denial. In the seven times it has happened since the annual term opened in October, Justice Sotomayor has signed four of the opinions, more than any other justice. She was the lead author on three, again more than any other justice.

She forcefully dissented when the justices refused to hear the appeal of a Louisiana prisoner who claimed he was punished for not taking his HIV medication. He said prison officials subjected him to hard labor in 100-degree heat. Writing alone, she said the inmate had a persuasive claim of cruel and unusual punishment.

This emerging pattern of dissenting statements helps define a justice in her second term who is still — like newest justice Elena Kagan— fresh in the public eye.

On the law, Sotomayor has been in the liberal mold of her predecessor, David Souter, and her approach to writing opinions on cases heard has been fact-specific and free of rhetorical flourish. That was her style as a trial judge (1992-98) and appeals court judge (1998-2009).

Yet she has stood out as one of the most demanding questioners during oral arguments. She often breaks in as a fellow justice is questioning a lawyer, although she is not alone. Antonin Scalia also has an aggressive approach.

Her tendency to protest when the justices pass up a case she believes is crucial may be another way of getting her voice heard.

Adam Abensohn, a law clerk to Sotomayor earlier in her career, said of the recent dissents, "If she has a viewpoint, she won't hesitate to assert herself. If she thinks it's a good idea to do something, she's not going to hold back simply because 'it's not the way things are done' or because she's relatively new."

Abensohn, who practices law in New York, said that although such dissenting opinions have no immediate legal consequence, they "may plant the seeds for the court to address an issue down the road. ... In a sense, Justice Sotomayor is placing her stamp on issues that may be decided years from now."

Dissents can change colleagues' minds — if not then, later. In February 2009, Scalia protested that the court repeatedly rejected appeals involving an open-ended U.S. law making it a crime for officials to deprive citizens of their right to "honest services." Dissenting alone in one of these disputes, Scalia noted lower courts disagreed on what offenses were covered and declared, "It seems ... quite irresponsible to let the current chaos prevail."

A few months later, the court took up the issue and ultimately ruled in a way that narrowed the law to bribes and kickbacks.

Sotomayor has been most vocal in criminal law cases. In the appeal from the Louisiana prisoner, she wrote that his decision to refuse medication "does not give prison officials license to exacerbate (his) condition further as a means of punishing or coercing him."

In another case, she objected when the justices declined to take a petition from an Arkansas murderer who said jurors should have heard mitigating evidence of his brutal childhood before deciding on a death sentence. She was troubled by an appeals court's decision letting officials wait to object to a claim for a new hearing until they had heard the prisoner's evidence and he had prevailed at an early stage.

Sotomayor said states should not be allowed "to manipulate federal ... proceedings to their own strategic advantage at an unacceptable cost to justice." She was joined only by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It takes four votes among the nine for the high court to take a case; it then takes five votes to resolve the case.

Jonathan Kirshbaum, a senior lawyer at the non-profit Center for Appellate Litigation in New York, which represents indigent defendants, said he has been struck by how Sotomayor, a former prosecutor, has "come out so strongly for criminal defendants."

Sotomayor declined to comment for this story.

Justice Samuel Alito, also a former prosecutor, has been a close second this term in publicly objecting when the majority declines a case. He protested in three cases and authored the opinion in two. On criminal matters, he tends to favor law enforcement.

When Sotomayor was appointed, some defendants' rights advocates, including Kirshbaum, speculated that she might take a hard line on prisoner appeals.

He said she's adopting a much different approach. "There seems to be real feeling behind these opinions," he said. "They give the criminal defendant's perspective on these issues."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... titialskip



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PostPosted: 12/29/10 12:46 pm • # 3 
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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

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



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