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Chatting with Sonia Sotomayor

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Last night, Charlie Rose had Sonia Sotomayor on his show discussing her recent book, My Beloved World. They covered a lot of ground on the show including how to write a Supreme Court position paper.  They mentioned some of the well crafted positions of the past, such as Hugo Black's position on Brown v. Board of Education and how Justice Sotomayor crafted hers, which have been criticized for being "dry."

It was quite interesting as she said she said Obama put her on a bit of a hot seat by saying he chose a justice nominee who brought empathy to the bench, and found herself having to defend herself before the Senate in this regard.  She said she had no idea what the President meant by it, other than she brought her own personal experience to the bench, as each justice does, but she feels it is very important to have proper legal grounding to all her decisions, not let herself be influenced by any emotional response to a particular case brought before her.

In her autobiography, she presents her personal experience in her "evocative, plain-spoken prose."

Comments

  1. avrdsFebruary 8, 2013 at 8:15 PM

    I thought this was an interesting profile of her new life in Washington. I wonder when the Post will take the initiative to look into the lives of other justices ....

    http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-02/local/36705493_1_justice-sotomayor-third-female-justice-sonia-sotomayor

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rick DiguetteFebruary 9, 2013 at 12:18 AM

      Oh my, does she ever sound like a judge. Having worked and written for appelate courts judges, one thing I learned is that they will second guess anything and everything.

      Delete
  2. TripplerFebruary 9, 2013 at 4:12 AM

    She should replace Roberts as Chief Justice. Be nice if Scalia & Thomas retired so that the court can go in a more justice oriented direction.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TripplerFebruary 9, 2013 at 4:21 AM

    I just finished reading the following book:

    ''CHARLATAN - America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam''

    By Pope Brock


    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/books/31maslin.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


    Though the book is filled with tragedy and though the principle character was, technically speaking, a murderer, you couldn't help but feel sorry for him when he got shafted by the courts. Brock succeeds in painting a very paradoxical portrait of an enigmatic and complex figure who is a truly sympathetic rogue.

    He made millions through shrewd investments. But in the end, he wound up broke. Among his many achievements was the creation of what evolved into Rock & Roll radio, creation of modern day political campaigning, caused government to stiffen medical licensing, and to heighten regulation which intervened in the prevention of medical quackery.


    Very good reading.

    ReplyDelete
  4. James FergusonFebruary 9, 2013 at 10:51 AM

    With the vote on health care, it seems that Roberts isn't the ideologue that the Conservatives wanted heading the bench. The two ideologues are Scalia and Thomas, who never waver in their decisions. The inscrutable Thomas rarely utters a word when presiding in court, breaking seven years of stony silence with the cryptic comment, "Well -- he did not."

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/justice-clarence-thomas-breaks-seven-silence-court-200102112.html

    Sotomayor prefers to keep quiet on her colleagues, but Breyer is not afraid to wrangle with Scalia over his concept of "original intent" of the Constitution,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4n8gOUzZ8I

    ReplyDelete

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