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US Supreme Court Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 11, 2009 1 Comment

As reported by AP:John J. O'Connor III, the husband of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has died.The court said that O'Connor, 79, died Wednesday in Phoenix, Ariz., of complications arising from Alzheimer's disease.John O'Connor, himself a lawyer, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's nearly two...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 04, 2009 9 Comments

Like I said, with regard to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, in my prior post Yes To Sotomayor. Here's an excerpt from reliably conservative Pat Toomey's Op-Ed today:When John Roberts and Samuel Alito were nominated to the Supreme Court, Republicans argued that they should be...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 16, 2009 29 Comments

Yes, the Senate should vote Yes on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to be the next Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The main reason I reach this conclusion is that there is no compelling reason to vote no.I watched about half of Sotomayor's...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 15, 2009 4 Comments

At Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, Sotomayor was asked by Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to explain her comment that "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...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 11, 2009 6 Comments

Frank Ricci was the lead plaintiff in Ricci v. DeStefano, the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Sonia Sotomayor on the issue of whether the City of New Haven discriminated against mostly white firefighters. The Supreme Court decision, as well as Sotomayor's handling...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 01, 2009 6 Comments

I don't think confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee should turn on public polling. Nonetheless, when the public polls favored Sonia Sotomayor, supporters of Sotomayor argued for the relevance of these polls, arguing that "that Obama apparently found the American political center in appointing her."Then...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2009 8 Comments

In a 5-4 ruling authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed the ruling by Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor and two other Court of Appeals judges in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano. [Full opinion and analysis below]In Ricci, white New...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 14, 2009 2 Comments

The Blog of Legal Times (BLT) is reporting that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated recently that she expected Sonia Sotomayor to be confirmed, and that Sotomayor would be a welcomed and qualified addition to the Court. BLT noted that such commentary by...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 09, 2009 1 Comment

In today's New York Times, columnist David Brooks has a novel theory of why Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's Latina identity has worked its way into Sotomayor's speeches, if not her judicial decisions: Blame it on the 1970's.No, seriously. According to Brooks, Sotomayor had bad...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 03, 2009 10 Comments

The White House explanation for Sonia Sotomayor's 2001 "wise Latina" statement was that Sotomayor used a "poor" choice of words and certainly would "restate" the language. This spin made no sense, as the full text of the 2001 speech made clear that Sotomayor did not...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 01, 2009 7 Comments

In my post yesterday, I noted that Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wasn't "buying" the Obama administration spin that Sonia Sotomayor made a "poor" choice of words or misspoke in her speech in 2001 when Sotomayor said “I would hope that a wise Latina woman...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 31, 2009 0 Comments

Ruth Marcus is a columnist for the Washington Post. By any standard, Marcus is left-of-center, not an Obama-basher, and not hostile to liberal causes. So when Marcus rejects the White House spin on Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" statement, it deserves attention:Nice try, Mr. President, but...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 31, 2009 0 Comments

“Scott, you said that – or the President said, repeatedly, that Harriet Miers was the best person for the job. So does that mean Alito is sloppy seconds, or what?” CBS News Correspondent, John Roberts, at White House Press Briefing, questioning White House Press Secretary...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 30, 2009 4 Comments

Bruce Ackerman, a prominent constitutional law professor at Yale Law School, warned against the tactic of "stealth" Supreme Court nominations, where an ideologically driven President who seeks to change the direction of the Supreme Court nominates a relatively undistinguished appeals court judge whose lack of...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 30, 2009 4 Comments

"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." So it is said. We now have reached stage three of the Sotomayor debate, because we are into statistical analysis of her opinions and dissents.First, some backdrop on statistics as relates to Supreme Court nominees. During the confirmation...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 29, 2009 3 Comments

At a 2001 conference, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor uttered these now-famous words: “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.”...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 29, 2009 2 Comments

The New York Times has an article today about Sonia Sotomayor's board membership at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEP) starting in the 1980s until she joined the federal judiciary in 1992. According to the article, Sotomayor was far from a passive...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 28, 2009 15 Comments

Barack Obama campaigned on the theme of a new era of transparency. Obama used that theme as a justification for the release of four highly classified internal Justice Department memos detailing strategies for interrogation of al-Qaeda detainees, over the objections of Obama's own Director of...

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