Y Gen Out Loud » Supreme Court

Sotomayor confirmed to Supreme Court

Elissa Underwood — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:59:15 +0000

The Senate today confirmed Sonia Sotomayor as the 111^th Supreme Court justice. She will be the first justice of Hispanic descent, and the third woman, to serve on the Court.

The 68 to 31 vote came after about 18 hours of debate over the past three days. The confirmation came as little surprise, since her hearing before the Judiciary Committee last month failed to ignite much controversy. Nine Republicans joined the 59 Democrats present to vote in favor of Sotomayor, while 31 Republicans voted against her. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, is ill and did not vote.

Judge Sotomayor, 55, is expected to take the oath of office on Saturday, with a formal ceremony scheduled for September. She succeeds Justice David Souter, who retired in June. She follows Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as the third woman on the Court.

During the nomination process, Democrats pointed to Sotomayor’s qualities that led her from humble beginnings in a Bronx housing project to the pinnacle of her profession. Republicans countered that her background made her too “empathetic,” and that she lacked impartiality.

Political strategists have suggested that Republicans who opposed Sotomayor may face a backlash from Hispanics, the fastest growing U.S. minority. It will be interesting to see if there are political repercussions, especially for Republican senators in states with large Hispanic populations.

Supreme Court rules strip search illegal

Kasey Ruedas Yanna — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:02:45 +0000

In an opinion that reads more like an episode of “Gossip Girl,” the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the strip search of a 13-year-old female student suspected of dispensing prescription-strength pills to friends was unconstitutional.

Savana Redding, now 19, had been accused by a friend, Marissa, of having given her ibuprofen, which is against the policy of her school in Safford, Ariz. Assistant Principal Kerry Wilson called Savana to his office, where he questioned her about the drugs he had found on Marissa. Savana told him that she didn’t know about any pills and, to prove her innocence, gave Wilson and Helen Romero, an administrative assistant, permission to search her backpack. Finding no contraband, Wilson ordered Romero and the school nurse, Peggy Schwallier, to search Savana’s clothes for any pills.

“They asked me to pull out my bra and shake it from side to side,” Savana said. “They made me open my legs and pull out my underwear.” This embarrassing event caused such distress that Savana developed stomach ulcers and eventually transferred to another school. “I never wanted to see the secretary or the nurse ever again.”

Believing the strip search violated her daughter’s rights, April Redding sued the school district. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that school officials had violated Savana’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, since Wilson had acted too aggressively on vague allegations. Without legal immunity, Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier were open to a personal lawsuit by Savana. On April 21, that case went to the Supreme Court.

In Safford Unified School District v. Redding, the Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court that Savana’s Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. However, the Court also held that Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier had qualified immunity and were therefore not liable for their wrongdoings. At the time of the strip search, “clearly established law [did] not show that the search violated the Fourth Amendment,” Pearson v. Callahan.

So what does this mean? The Supreme Court’s decision didn’t provide clear guidelines on when schools can strip search. Rather, in the future, school personnel should consider the type of contraband in question and whether there is reason to believe it’s hidden in an intimate place. Perhaps this will put an end to strip searches in schools. Or at the very least, give school personnel pause before asking students to reveal sensitive areas.

Sotomayor’s road to Supreme Court

Elissa Underwood — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:32:47 +0000

As U.S. Supreme Court-designate Sonia Sotomayor has certainly figured out, the road to the bench will not be a cakewalk. It’s only been a few weeks since President Obama picked the U.S. District judge to replace retiring Justice David Souter, but already critics have pulled out all the stops against the nominee. The question becomes, is there enough material in Sotomayor’s background to continue the fight?

Right now, their loudest condemnation centers around a comment Sotomayor made while speaking in 2001 at a UC Berkeley School of Law symposium titled “Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation.” In that speech, Sotomayor said she “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.”

Her lecture was part of a conference focusing on issues of diversity and the need to increase Hispanic representation on the bench. Taken in context, her comment was just one piece of a discussion about her Latina identity and how it has influenced her presence on the bench. As the president pointed out, in that very same speech Sotomayor emphasized “that it was nine white males who passed down Brown versus Board of Education, which is partly responsible for me sitting here,” referencing the 1954 Supreme Court decision that made school segregation illegal. “[T]hat’s hardly the kind of statement that would indicate that she subscribes to identity politics.”

But opponents have taken that sentence and run with it. They claim such comments are evidence that Sotomayor will engage in judicial “activism,” relying on personal feelings rather than the rule of law when deciding cases. They also point to the statement as being racist against white males.

President Obama has called such criticism nonsense, defending Sotomayor by claiming that her background and experience “will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through” and make her a good judge.

In early June, Sotomayor made “courtesy calls” to U.S. senators on Capitol Hill, hoping to pave the way for a smooth confirmation process. Her conversations ran the gamut, from bicycling to Nancy Drew books, and even a legal discussion of the doctrine of stare decisis (respect for legal precedent). Naturally, the 2001 speech crept into the dialogue. She assured senators that not only did she make a poor choice of words, but that she’s bound by law when ruling on cases.

Her face time did not dissipate everyone’s concerns. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, admitted he was still bothered by the “wise Latina” comment. He challenged Sotomayor to prove that she will remain unbiased and base her legal rulings on nothing but legal principles.

But in the end, it’s becoming evident that Graham and other opponents are in the minority. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog notes that Sotomayor’s record shows genuine balance, so it’s hard to accuse her of being a liberal ideologue. Conservatives, too, are having a hard time rallying the troops when they can’t point to any Sotomayor writings on controversial social issues such as gay rights and abortion. And then there is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s retraction of an early comment that Sotomayor is racist.

So, will the minority continue to raise objections to Sotomayor’s nomination in the hopes of delaying or derailing the process, or will they back off their opposition? Confirmation hearings will begin on July 13. At that time, we will see if the hearings process will be a cakewalk for the nominee.

This is the first article in an occasional series about the Road to the Supreme Court.

Souter out, Sotomayor in

Elissa Underwood — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:48:42 +0000

When U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced he would be retiring from the bench in June, President Obama was handed the opportunity to not only make his first Supreme Court nomination mere months after taking office, but to begin crafting his legacy in law. After weeks of speculation, Obama on Tuesday nominated U.S. appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

In his introduction, Obama praised Sotomayor as someone who will bring to the Court “not only the knowledge and experience acquired over a course of a brilliant legal career, but the wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life’s journey.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Hispanic and only the third woman to ever sit on the Supreme Court. The daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, Sotomayor grew up in a Bronx housing project. At age 8, she was diagnosed with diabetes. A year later, her father died, leaving her mother to raise her and a brother.

Sotomayor rose above her difficult beginnings. After graduating summa cum laude from Princeton University and then Yale Law School, she worked as a prosecutor and private attorney before being appointed a federal judge for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush in 1992. She became an appeals judge in 1998 for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which covers New York, Vermont and Connecticut.

Her nomination doesn’t come as a complete surprise, since her name had been floated as a possibility ever since Souter’s announcement on May 1. She was high on the replacement list in part because of her personal story of triumphant over adversity. But she’s not without judicial merit. Supporters say she questions lawyers vigorously and delivers well-considered decisions. Baseball fans applauded one of those decisions in 1995, when Sotomayor ended the major league baseball strike.

Progressive activists already are cheering the pick. “We already know that she is a brilliant lawyer who is committed to ruling based on the Constitution and the law, not on her own personal political views,” said Doug Kendall, president of the liberal Constitution Accountability Center.

Obama supporters may be enthusiastic about his choice, but the love doesn’t necessarily reach across the aisle. Earlier this month, conservative talk radio hosts began questioning her credibility, and anonymous lawyers and law clerks attacked her temperament and intellect.

And last weekend, before Sotomayor officially became the nominee, Republican lawmakers said they would attempt a filibuster against her confirmation. It’s uncertain how far Republicans can go to block her appointment, especially since seven of their 40 members voted to confirm her in 1998.

Obama has said he wants to see Sotomayor confirmed by the start of the Senate’s five-week recess, slated to begin Aug. 7. Almost certainly this means a summer filled with political fireworks, as Democrats and Republicans try to make the case before the public for and against the nominee. In the end, Obama’s pick won’t change the ideological composition of the Court overnight. But the President’s decision to choose an Hispanic woman will likely have long-lasting political, legal, and social effects for the Court and the country.