Juramento Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor juró esta mañana.

Foto CNN y NY Times

A biographical sketch of Sonia Sotomayor

Sotomayor se convierte en la primera hispana en el Supremo de EE UU

El Senado de EE UU confirmó este jueves a Sonia Sotomayor como la primera juez hispana en el Tribunal Supremo, con el voto en bloque de la mayoría demócrata y el de nueve republicanos que ya habían anunciado previamente su apoyo a la candidata elegida por el presidente Barack Obama, en una decisión histórica para la ciudadanía latina, que ya supone casi el 15% de la población del país.

Sotomayor es la tercera mujer en ocupar un sillón en la máxima instancia judicial de EE UU. La ya juez del Supremo disipó las dudas sobre su confirmación al salir indemne en su comparecencia ante el Comité de Asuntos Judiciales del Senado el mes pasado, en la que sorteó cualquier polémica y se retractó de haber dicho en un discurso en 2001 que una mujer "latina e inteligente" llegaría a "mejores conclusiones" que un hombre blanco.

El presidente compareció ante los medios minutos después del voto del Senado, y alabó que "los principios que hacen única a América, la justicia, la igualdad y la oportunidad, hayan hecho posible que la juez Sotomayor haya recorrido este camino". "Hoy hemos roto otra barrera y estamos un paso más cerca de ser una Unión más perfecta", dijo Obama. El sábado tendrá lugar la ceremonia en que Sotomayor pronunciará el juramento de ingreso en el Tribunal, presidida por su presidente, el juez John Roberts.

Sotomayor contó finalmente con el apoyo de casi dos tercios de la cámara, 68 votos contra 31, con la única ausencia del demócrata Edward Kennedy, que está siendo tratado por un tumor cerebral. A pesar de reconocer lo impecable de su currículum -doctora en Derecho por la Universidad de Yale, jueza en activo desde 1992-, un nutrido grupo de republicanos, entre ellos John McCain, se opuso a su confirmación por considerar que muchos de sus veredictos la convierten en una activista a favor de las minorías.

La más polémica fue una sentencia de 2008, emitida junto a otros dos jueces, en la que Sotomayor dio la razón a la ciudad de New Haven, en Connecticut, por declarar inválido un examen para el cuerpo de bomberos local en el que no había logrado plaza ningún afroamericano. Entonces, Sotomayor expresó su convicción de que el gobierno local debía velar por la presencia de las minorías raciales en el sector público. Este mismo año, el Supremo del que ya forma parte invalidó aquella sentencia.

Otro punto de fricción con los conservadores fue la opinión que la jurisprudencia de Sotomayor refleja sobre el derecho a portar armas, amparado por la segunda enmienda a la Constitución. Este mismo año, Sotomayor formó parte de un comité judicial que emitió la opinión de que la enmienda sólo atañe a las acciones del gobierno federal, y que cada Estado tiene la potestad de regular independientemente sobre la tenencia de armas de fuego. La influyente Asociación Nacional del Rifle se opuso a su confirmación y advirtió a los senadores de que tendrá en cuenta su voto al respecto cuando efectúe su evaluación anual de cada político en la escena nacional.

"Aún se niega a reafirmar lo que dice claramente la segunda enmienda, como un derecho fundamental para todos los americanos", dijo de ella el senador republicano Jim Demint, que votó en contra de confirmarla. "Y en el asunto del aborto, habla del derecho constitucional de una mujer a 'acabar' con un niño, algo que no está escrito en nuestra Constitución". El también republicano Orrin Hatch dijo sentir el tener que votar que no. "Pero creo que estoy haciendo lo que es justo y honroso", añadió.

Sotomayor no necesitó este jueves sus votos. En total, nueve republicanos habían anunciado que le iban a dar su apoyo, entre ellos los más moderados de la bancada, como Olympia Snowe, de Maine, y el único latino republicano en la cámara, el senador de origen cubano Mel Martinez, de Florida. "No comparto la opinión de la juez Sotomayor en muchos asuntos", dijo Martínez, "pero son probablemente menos asuntos de los que me separarán de otros jueces que conoceré en el futuro".

Después de la jubilación del juez progresista David Souter el pasado mes de junio, Sotomayor ocupará su sillón en septiembre, en una nueva sesión anual en la que los jueces deberán dilucidar sobre asuntos tan candentes como la aplicación de la pena de muerte o la reforma de la financiación de las campañas electorales.

© EDICIONES EL PAÍS.

Sotomayor Confirmed by Senate, 68-31

Voting largely along party lines, the Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th justice of the Supreme Court. She will be the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the court.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was expected to administer the oath of office to Judge Sotomayor, 55, in the next few days, with a formal ceremony likely in September. She succeeds Justice David H. Souter, who retired in June.

Democrats celebrated the successful nomination and relatively smooth confirmation process as a bright spot in a summer when they have been buffeted by several challenges, including rocky progress on their attempts to overhaul the nation’s health care system, President Obama’s falling approval ratings, the climbing unemployment rate and other lingering economic problems.

Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation was never in much doubt, given Democrats’ numerical advantage in the Senate. But the final vote — 68 to 31 — represented a partisan divide. No Democrat voted against her, while all but 9 of the chamber’s 40 Republicans did so. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, is ailing and did not vote.

During three days of debate on the Senate floor, Republicans labeled Judge Sotomayor a liberal judicial activist, decrying several of her speeches about diversity and the nature of judgments, as well as her votes in cases involving Second Amendment rights, property rights and a reverse-discrimination claim brought by white firefighters in New Haven.

“Judge Sotomayor is certainly a fine person with an impressive story and a distinguished background,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said this week. “But a judge must be able to check his or her personal or political agenda at the courtroom door and do justice evenhandedly, as the judicial oath requires. This is the most fundamental test. It is a test that Judge Sotomayor does not pass.”

But Democrats portrayed Judge Sotomayor as a mainstream and qualified judge whose life — rising from a childhood in a Bronx housing project to the Ivy League and now the Supreme Court — is a classic American success story. And they called her judicial record moderate and mainstream.

“Judge Sotomayor’s career and judicial record demonstrates that she has always followed the rule of law,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday. “Attempts at distorting that record by suggesting that her ethnicity or heritage will be the driving force in her decisions as a justice of the Supreme Court are demeaning to women and all communities of color.”

From the moment Mr. Obama chose her in May, many political strategists warned Republicans that opposing the first Latina nominated to the Supreme Court would jeopardize the party in future elections. In the waning days of the debate, some Democrats sought to portray Republican opposition as a grave insult to Latinos.

“Republicans will pay a price for saying ‘no’ to this judge,” Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said in Spanish at a news conference Wednesday.

And in July, the National Rifle Association, which historically has stayed out of judicial nomination fights, came out against Justice Sotomayor and said it would include senators’ confirmation vote in its legislative scorecard on gun-rights issues for the 2010 election — a pointed threat to Democrats from conservative-leaning states.

But attempts to appeal to interest-group politics in the confirmation process largely faltered.

The final vote was “a triumph of party unity over some of the interest group politics that you would have expected to play a bigger role,” said Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, which opposed Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation.

Many Republicans took pains to emphasize that their vote against Judge Sotomayor did not mean they were anti-Latino. They praised her credentials and her biography, saying they were troubled only by what they said was her judicial philosophy.

Before announcing his opposition to her nomination, Senator John McCain of Arizona, last year’s Republican presidential nominee who has been sympathetic to calls by Latinos and others for reforming the nation’s immigration laws, first described her as an “immensely qualified candidate” with an “inspiring and compelling” life story. And he dwelled on his support for Miguel Estrada, an appeals-court nominee of President George W. Bush whom Democrats blocked from a vote even though “millions of Latinos would have taken great pride in his confirmation,” Mr. McCain said.

Many other Republicans echoed Mr. McCain’s approach in explaining their votes. On Thursday, for example, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, spoke at length about the “unfair and disgraceful” treatment of Mr. Estrada, while criticizing Judge Sotomayor’s record.

“I wish President Obama had chosen a Hispanic nominee whom all senators could support,” Mr. Hatch said.

Juan Hernández, who served as Hispanic outreach coordinator for Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign, said most Republicans had not done enough to persuade Hispanics that they were welcome in the party.

“It’s not good enough to give two or three lines about Hispanics and then say, ‘No, I’m not going to vote for Sotomayor,‘ “ he said. “We’re just losing Hispanics left and right. It’s amazing, in the Republican Party — we’re doing it to ourselves.”

But Manuel A. Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of conservatives who opposed the Sotomayor nomination, said Hispanics were ideologically diverse and would understand that Republican opposition to a particular liberal-leaning judge did not mean they were hostile to Hispanics — especially since her confirmation hearing was civil, he said.

“Hispanics are not going to be offended by the opposition because Republicans didn’t torment her,” Mr. Miranda said. “Republicans can take this vote because they treated her well.”

For many Hispanic voters, the symbolism of the first Latina joining the Supreme Court — and the memory of who opposed her — could be all that lingers, said Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, an Hispanic advocacy group.

“This is a singularly definitive historic moment,” she said. “So it is a vote, I think, that will matter to the Latino community and will be remembered by the Latino community.”

What also remains to be seen is whether Democratic senators — especially those from conservative-leaning states and those who have received high ratings from the National Rifle Association in the past — will pay a political price for voting to confirm Judge Sotomayor despite the group’s opposition.

Andrew Arulanandam, an N.R.A. spokesman, declined to comment about the vote, but he did say it was too early to know how much weight his group would give to the Sotomayor vote when putting together its scores and endorsements for the 2010 election cycle.

Still, despite the seeming impotence of the gun-rights group’s ability to intervene in the nomination fight, Mr. Miranda said he believed the threat of lower ratings might have had led more Republicans to vote against Judge Sotomayor, noting that many had cited her alleged lack of support for Second Amendment rights in explaining their votes.

“That was a seismic shift,” Mr. Miranda said.

Matthew Dowd, a former political adviser to Mr. Bush who had warned Republicans to be civil, disagreed. He said the Supreme Court confirmation process had simply become increasingly polarized along party lines, regardless of a nominee’s qualifications or the stance of groups like the National Rifle Association.

“My view is that gun rights had nothing to do with it,” he said. “Supreme Court nominations have become dodgeball games, with Democrats lining up on one side and Republicans lining up on our side.”

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
NY Times

Sotomayor Pasó el Cedazo de la Comisión

La Comisión de Asuntos Jurídicos del Senado de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica se reunió para votar por la confirmación de la Jueza Sonia Sotomayor. La votación fue de 13 a favor y 6 en contra.

Todos los demócratas de la Comisión votaron a favor de la confirmación. El republicano, Lindsey Graham, Senador por el estado de Carolina del Sur, votó a favor. Los otros senadores republicanos votaron en contra.

Los conservadores republicanos votaron en contra alegando que la base de su partido se opone al nombramiento. Estos alegan que tienen preocupación con el nombramiento de una “jueza liberal” y su posición con la aportación de armas y el derecho a la propiedad. ¿Será esa la verdadera razón? ¿O lo será su color de piel?

Ahora falta la votación en pleno del Senado, pero una cosa es clara, el senado cuenta con una mayoría de demócratas.

Sólo hay que esperar si Sotomayor será la próxima jueza del Tribunal Supremo de la República de EU, una de los nueve jueces colegiados.

Sonia Sotomayor LEMCPSA

Respaldamos a la Jueza Sonia Sotomayor

Nosotros respaldamos a la Jueza Sonia Sotomayor para ocupar el cargo de Juez Asociada del Tribunal Supremo de los Estados Unidos de America, por entender que tiene un buen expediente académico así como profesional:

1) Graduada de Princeton University en 1976
2) Graduada de Yale School of Law en 1979
3) Juez de la Cámara Federal de Apelaciones del 2do Circuito desde 1998 hasta el presente, nombrada por el Presidente Clinton
4) Jueza de la Corte Federal de Distrito Sur de New York de 1992 a 1998, nombrada por el Presidente Bush (Padre)
5) Practica privada de la abogacía de 1984 a 1992
6) Fiscal de Distrito en Manhattan , NY de 1979 a 1984

La Jueza Sotomayor nació en el Condado del Bronx, en una comunidad pobre, donde las oportunidades de salir hacia delante son pocas. Esa es la realidad en esas comunidades donde la mayoría de los habitantes no sobreviven la dureza de la discriminación. Sin embargo, Sotomayor lo logro, y esto gracias también al trabajo, esfuerzo, y visión de su Sra. Madre, de la cual aprendió los valores de honradez y dedicación. Sotomayor, sin cambiar sus pensamientos, y mucho menos, sin tener que vender sus principios solo para escalar y obtener un empleo, ha logrado llegar hasta donde está hoy día.

Además, apoyamos su nominación por entender que la Jueza Sotomayor representa los valores de integridad, muchos de los cuales se han perdido actualmente en el sistema de justicia. Da grima escuchar los comentarios de tanta gente sin integridad, sin valores ninguno, esgrimiendo argumentos escuetos y prejuiciados en contra de su nominación.

Esperamos que Sotomayor continúe con la gran labor que efectúo el Juez Thurgood Marshall (1967-1991) en el tribunal supremo, quien fuera el primer afro-americano en ocupar un cargo de juez en dicho “Monte de Olimpo”. Marshall se destacó por su gran labor como jurista. Sotomayor tiene toda la capacidad e integridad para ocupar este gran alto cargo en la justicia suprema.

NOSOTROS APOYAMOS A SONIA SOTOMAYOR




Por Don Segundo y Doña Bianca

The Place of Women on the Court

In late February, three weeks after she had an operation for a recurrence of cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Barack Obama’s first address to Congress. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t an event anyone expected her to attend. She went, she said, because she wanted the country to see that there was a woman on the Supreme Court.

Now another woman, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is about to begin the confirmation hearings that stand between her and a seat near Ginsburg on the high bench. After 16 years on the court — the last three, since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, as the only woman working alongside eight men — Ginsburg has a unique perspective on what’s at stake in Sotomayor’s nomination. I sat down with the 76-year-old justice last week to talk about women on the bench and their effect on the dynamics and decisions of the court.

I first met Justice Ginsburg a year ago, when she invited me to her chambers and to a tea for international fellows from Georgetown law school, at which she was speaking. It struck me then, as we walked through the courthouse, that each marker she pointed out involved women’s history — from a photograph and a political cartoon in the hallway outside her chambers of Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court bar, to the renaming of a dining room at the court in honor of Natalie Cornell Rehnquist, wife of the late chief justice. (The tribute was O’Connor’s idea. “My former chief was a traditionalist, but he could hardly object,” Ginsburg said with a bit of glee.)

This time, we talked for 90 minutes in the personal office of Ginsburg’s temporary chambers (she is soon moving to the chambers that Justice David Souter is vacating). Ginsburg, who was wearing an elegant cream-colored suit, matching pumps and turquoise earrings, spoke softly, and at times her manner was mild, but she was forceful about why she thinks Sotomayor should be confirmed and about a few of the court’s recent cases. What follows is a condensed and edited version of our interview.

At the end of our time together, Ginsburg rose and said energetically that she would soon be off to her twice-weekly 7 p.m. personal-training session. She works out at the court on an elliptical machine, and she lifts weights. “To keep me in shape,” she said.

Q: At your confirmation hearings in 1993, you talked¬ about how you hoped to see three or four women on the court. How do you feel about how long it has taken to see simply one more woman nominated?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: My prediction was right for the Supreme Court of Canada. They have Beverley McLachlin as the chief justice, and they have at least three other women. The attrition rate is slow on this court.

Q: Now that Judge Sotomayor has been nominated, how do you feel about that?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: I feel great that I don’t have to be the lone woman around this place.

Q: What has that been like?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: It’s almost like being back in law school in 1956, when there were 9 of us in a class of over 500, so that meant most sections had just 2 women, and you felt that every eye was on you. Every time you went to answer a question, you were answering for your entire sex. It may not have been true, but certainly you felt that way. You were different and the object of curiosity.

Q: Did you feel that this time around from your male colleagues?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: My basic concern about being all alone was the public got the wrong perception of the court. It just doesn’t look right in the year 2009.

Q: Why on a deeper level does it matter? It’s not just the symbolism, right?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: It matters for women to be there at the conference table to be doing everything that the court does. I hope that these hearings for Sonia will be as civil as mine were and Steve Breyer’s were. Ours were unusual in that respect.

Q: Did you think that all the attention to the criticism of Sotomayor as being “bullying” or not as smart is sex-inflected? Does that have to do with the rarity of a woman in her position, and the particular challenges?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I can’t say that it was just that she was a woman. There are some people in Congress who would criticize severely anyone President Obama nominated. They’ll seize on any handle. One is that she’s a woman, another is that she made the remark about Latina women. [In 2001 Sotomayor said: “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.”] And I thought it was ridiculous for them to make a big deal out of that. Think of how many times you’ve said something that you didn’t get out quite right, and you would edit your statement if you could. I’m sure she meant no more than what I mean when I say: Yes, women bring a different life experience to the table. All of our differences make the conference better. That I’m a woman, that’s part of it, that I’m Jewish, that’s part of it, that I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I went to summer camp in the Adirondacks, all these things are part of me.

Once Justice O’Connor was questioning counsel at oral argument. I thought she was done, so I asked a question, and Sandra said: Just a minute, I’m not finished. So I apologized to her and she said, It’s O.K., Ruth. The guys do it to each other all the time, they step on each other’s questions. And then there appeared an item in USA Today, and the headline was something like“Rude Ruth Interrupts Sandra.”

Q: It seemed to me that male judges do much more abrasive things all the time, and it goes unremarked.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the notion that Sonia is an aggressive questioner — what else is new? Has anybody watched Scalia or Breyer up on the bench?
Q: She’ll fit right in?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: She’ll hold her own.

Q: From your point of view, does having another woman on the court matter primarily in terms of the public’s perception, or also for what it feels like to be in conference and on the bench?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: All of those things. What was particularly good was that Sandra and I were different — not cast in the same mold. Sandra gets out two words to my every one. I think that Sonia and I will also be quite different in our style. I think she may be the first justice who didn’t have English as her native language. And she has done just about everything that you can do in law as a prosecutor, in a private firm and on the District Court and the Court of Appeals.

Q: Do you know her well or a little bit?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I know her because I’m the Second Circuit Justice. So I go once a year to the Judicial Conference.

Q: What do you think about Judge Sotomayor’s frank remarks that she is a product of affirmative action?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: So am I. I was the first tenured woman at Columbia. That was 1972, every law school was looking for its woman. Why? Because Stan Pottinger, who was then head of the office for civil rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was enforcing the Nixon government contract program. Every university had a contract, and Stan Pottinger would go around and ask, How are you doing on your affirmative-action plan? William McGill, who was then the president of Columbia, was asked by a reporter: How is Columbia doing with its affirmative action? He said, It’s no mistake that the two most recent appointments to the law school are a woman and an African-American man.

Q: And was that you?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I was the woman. I never would have gotten that invitation from Columbia without the push from the Nixon administration. I understand that there is a thought that people will point to the affirmative-action baby and say she couldn’t have made it if she were judged solely on the merits. But when I got to Columbia I was well regarded by my colleagues even though they certainly disagreed with many of the positions that I was taking. They backed me up: If that’s what I thought, I should be able to speak my mind.

Q: Is that another example of how you’ve worked with men over the years?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women’s organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man’s world. If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

Q: You sent me an article by Michael Klarman, a Harvard law professor, that was about ways in which you and Thurgood Marshall were effective as litigators. Klarman pointed out that you were very good at influencing a male lawyer’s brief without making him feel that you had taken over the case. Is that something you learned to do? Was it a conscious approach?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think it was a conscious approach. If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, You don’t know how to use the English language, or how could you make that argument? It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

Q: Do you think women have to learn how to do that in a different way from men sometimes in the workplace?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I haven’t noticed it. There are some very sympathetic men.
Q: Is it an approach that you still use with your colleagues to try and have a gentle touch?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, or to have a sense of humor.

Q: Do you think if there were more women on the court with you that other dynamics would change?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think back to the days when — I don’t know who it was — when I think Truman suggested the possibility of a woman as a justice. Someone said we have these conferences and men are talking to men and sometimes we loosen our ties, sometimes even take off our shoes. The notion was that they would be inhibited from doing that if women were around. I don’t know how many times I’ve kicked off my shoes. Including the time some reporter said something like, it took me a long time to get up from the bench. They worried, was I frail? To be truthful I had kicked off my shoes, and I couldn’t find my right shoe; it traveled way underneath.

Q: You are said to have very warm relationships with your colleagues. And so I was surprised to read a comment you made in an interview in May with Joan Biskupic of USA Today. You said that when you were a young lawyer, your voice was often ignored, and then a male colleague would repeat a point you’d made, and other people would be alert to it. And then you said this still happens now at conference.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Not often. It was a routine thing [in the past] that I would say something and it would just pass, and then somebody else would say almost the same thing and people noticed. I think the idea in the 1950s and ’60s was that if it was a woman’s voice, you could tune out, because she wasn’t going to say anything significant. There’s much less of that.But it still exists, and it’s not a special experience that I’ve had. I’ve talked to other women in high places, and they've had the same experience.

Q: I wonder if that would change if there were more women who were part of the mix on the court?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think it undoubtedly would. You can imagine in Canada, where McLachlin is the chief, I think they must have a different way of hearing a woman’s voice if she is the leader.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the academic research on the effect of sex on judging. Studies have found a difference in the way male and female judges of similar ideologies vote in some cases. And that the presence of a woman on a panel can influence the way her male colleagues vote. How do these findings match your experience?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I’m very doubtful about those kinds of [results]. I certainly know that there are women in federal courts with whom I disagree just as strongly as I disagree with any man. I guess I have some resistance to that kind of survey because it’s what I was arguing against in the ’70s. Like in Mozart’s opera “Così Fan Tutte”: that’s the way women are.

Q: We started by talking about the idea of three or four women on the Supreme Court.

Could you imagine a Supreme Court that had five or six or seven women on it?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, we’ve had some state Supreme Courts that have had a majority of women.

Q: Do you have a sense of what that would be like to actually work on and how it would be different?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The work would not be any easier. Some of the amenities might improve.

Q: Do you think that some of the discrimination cases might turn out differently?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think for the most part, yes. I would suspect that, because the women will relate to their own experiences.

Q: That’s one area in which outcomes might actually differ?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. I think the presence of women on the bench made it possible for the courts to appreciate earlier than they might otherwise that sexual harassment belongs under Title VII [as a violation of civil rights law].

Q: Can I bring up the Ricci case, brought by the New Haven firefighters?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: This case had some very hard elements. It was a bit like the Heller case, which involved the Second Amendment. [Last year, the Supreme Court found that Washington gun-control laws that barred handguns in private homes were unconstitutional.] For that, the plaintiff was a nice guy who was a security guard at the Federal Judicial Center, and he had to carry a gun on his job, but he couldn’t carry it home. And in Ricci, you have a dyslexic firefighter. Which is just exactly what you should do as a lawyer. I mean, that’s what I did.

Q: It’s true, it’s a very good strategy. He was a very sympathetic plaintiff. And it was important that the city had already given the test that the white firefighters scored high on and the black firefighters did not.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. And the city weights the written and oral parts of the test 60-40, and says: That’s what the union wanted, it’s been in the bargaining contracts for 20 years.

I don’t know how many cases there were, Title VII civil rights cases, where unions were responsible. The very first week that I was at Columbia, Jan Goodman, a lawyer in New York, called me and said, Do you know that Columbia has given layoff notices to 25 maids and not a single janitor? Columbia’s defense was the union contract, which was set up so that every maid would have to go before the newly hired janitor would get a layoff notice.

Q: What about the case this term involving the strip search, in school, of 13-year-old Savana Redding? Justice Souter’s majority opinion, finding that the strip search was unconstitutional, is very different from what I expected after oral argument, when some of the men on the court didn’t seem to see the seriousness here. Is that an example of a case when having a woman as part of the conversation was important?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I think it makes people stop and think, Maybe a 13-year-old girl is different from a 13-year-old boy in terms of how humiliating it is to be seen undressed. I think many of [the male justices] first thought of their own reaction. It came out in various questions. You change your clothes in the gym, what’s the big deal?

Q: Seeing that Souter wrote the opinion in Savana Redding’s case reminded me of Justice Rehnquist writing the majority opinion in Nevada v. Hibbs, the 2003 case in which the court ruled 6-3 that the Family Medical Leave Act applies to state employers, for both female and male workers. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in his opinion about an idea you have been talking about for a long time, about stereotypes. He discussed how when women are stereotyped as responsible for the domestic sphere, and men are not, that makes women seem less valuable as employees. I wonder if one of the measures of your success on the court is that a male justice would write an opinion like this?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: That opinion was such a delightful surprise. When my husband read it, he asked, did I write that opinion? I was very fond of my old chief. I have a sense that it was in part his life experience. When his daughter Janet was divorced, I think the chief felt some kind of responsibility to be kind of a father figure to those girls. So he became more sensitive to things that he might not have noticed.
Q: Right. Chief Justice Rehnquist once said that sex-discrimination claims carry little weight. And he quipped at the end of a case you argued, when you were a lawyer, “You won’t settle for putting Susan B. Anthony on the new dollar, then?” Do you think he was affected by working with you and Justice O’Connor?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I wouldn’t attribute it to one thing. I think I would attribute it to his court experience and his life experience. One of the most moving statements at a memorial service I ever heard was when Janet Rehnquist’s daughter read a letter that she had written to her grandfather. The closeness of their relationship and the caring was just beautiful. Most people had no idea that there was that side to Rehnquist.

Q: You have written, “To turn in a new direction, the court first had to gain an understanding that legislation apparently designed to benefit or protect women could have the opposite effect.” The pedestal versus the cage. Has the court made that turn completely, or is there still more work to be done?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Not completely, as you can see in the case involving whether a child acquires citizenship from an unwed father. [Nguyen v. INS, in which the court in 2001 upheld, by 5 to 4, a law that set different requirements for a child to become a citizen, depending on whether his citizenship rights came from his unmarried mother or his unmarried father.] The majority thought there was something about the link between a mother and a child that doesn’t exist between the father and a child. But in fact the child in the case had been brought up by his father.
They were held back by a way of looking at the world in which a man who wasn’t married simply was not responsible. There must have been so many repetitions of Madame Butterfly in World War II. And for Justice Stevens [who voted with the majority], that was part of his experience. I think that’s going to be over in the next generation, these kinds of rulings.

Q: Let me ask you about the fight you waged for the courts to understand that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: I wrote about it a number of times. I litigated Captain Struck’s case about reproductive choice. [In 1972, Ginsburg represented Capt. Susan Struck, who became pregnant during her service in the Air Force. At the time, the Air Force automatically discharged any woman who became pregnant and told Captain Struck that she should have an abortion if she wanted to keep her job. The government changed the regulation before the Supreme Court could decide the case.] If the court could have seen Susan Struck’s case — this was the U.S. government, a U.S. Air Force post, offering abortions, in 1971, two years before Roe.

Q: And suggesting an abortion as the solution to Struck’s problem.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes. Not only that, but it was available to her on the base.
Q: The case ties together themes of women’s equality and reproductive freedom. The court split those themes apart in Roe v. Wade. Do you see, as part of a future feminist legal wish list, repositioning Roe so that the right to abortion is rooted in the constitutional promise of sex equality?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Oh, yes. I think it will be.

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.

Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.
Q: When you say that reproductive rights need to be straightened out, what do you mean?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: The basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman.
Q: Does that mean getting rid of the test the court imposed, in which it allows states to impose restrictions on abortion — like a waiting period — that are not deemed an “undue burden” to a woman’s reproductive freedom?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: I’m not a big fan of these tests. I think the court uses them as a label that accommodates the result it wants to reach. It will be, it should be, that this is a woman’s decision. It’s entirely appropriate to say it has to be an informed decision, but that doesn’t mean you can keep a woman overnight who has traveled a great distance to get to the clinic, so that she has to go to some motel and think it over for 24 hours or 48 hours.
I still think, although I was much too optimistic in the early days, that the possibility of stopping a pregnancy very early is significant. The morning-after pill will become more accessible and easier to take. So I think the side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they’re fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change.
Q: Since we are talking about abortion, I want to ask you about Gonzales v. Carhart, the case in which the court upheld a law banning so-called partial-birth abortion. Justice Kennedy in his opinion for the majority characterized women as regretting the choice to have an abortion, and then talked about how they need to be shielded from knowing the specifics of what they’d done. You wrote, “This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about women’s place in the family and under the Constitution.” I wondered if this was an example of the court not quite making the turn to seeing women as fully autonomous.

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The poor little woman, to regret the choice that she made. Unfortunately there is something of that in Roe. It’s not about the women alone. It’s the women in consultation with her doctor. So the view you get is the tall doctor and the little woman who needs him.

Q: In the 1980s, you wrote about how while the sphere for women has widened to include more work, men haven’t taken on as much domestic responsibility. Do you think that things are beginning to change?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: That’s going to take time, changing that kind of culture. But looking at my own family, my daughter Jane teaches at Columbia, she travels all over the world, and she has the most outstanding supportive husband who certainly carries his fair share of the load. Although their division of labor is different than mine and my husband’s, because my daughter is a super cook.

Q: Can courts play a role in changing that culture?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: The Legislature can make the change, can facilitate the change, as laws like the Family Medical Leave Act do. But it’s not something a court can decree. A court can’t tell the man, You’ve got to do more than carry out the garbage.

By EMILY BAZELON
The New York Times

La vida que le espera a Sotomayor

De ser confirmada en el Senado, Sonia Sotomayor subirá los escalones de mármol de la Corte Suprema, lista para conocer y formar parte del exclusivo mundo del poder judicial estadounidense. Un escenario familiar para la jueza, pero diferente si se vive desde adentro.

Probablemente el 5 de octubre, si las estimaciones de la Casa Blanca son correctas, Sonia Sotomayor llegará a la Corte Suprema y entrará a la exclusiva cámara que se le asignará en el segundo piso del edificio. Ahí es probable que reciba las efusivas felicitaciones de su equipo más cercano, que estará compuesto por dos secretarias, hasta cuatro actuarios judiciales y un asistente personal.

Tras esto, se preparará para su ceremonia privada de investidura. Con el traje negro que caracteriza a los jueces del máximo tribunal, Sotomayor entrará a la sala principal de la corte, que tiene como centro un estrado de nueve lugares para los jueces.

En el salón adornado con una alfombra roja y azul, cortinas rojas de terciopelo y construido con enormes pilares de mármol ubicados al centro y los costados, la prensa la observará desde el ala izquierda; su familia la aplaudirá desde el ala derecha y sus colegas abogados y el público en general la verán desde el centro.
Con la máxima formalidad y emoción que se da en este tipo de ocasiones, esta mujer hispana pronunciará las siguientes palabras.

“Yo Sonia Sotomayor, juro solemnemente que administraré justicia sin importar a quién, con iguales derechos para ricos y para pobres, y que cumpliré fiel e imparcialmente todas las tareas asignadas que se me asignen como jueza de la Corte Suprema bajo la Constitución y leyes de los Estados Unidos. Entonces, que Dios me ayude”.

Desde ese momento en adelante, la vida de esta puertorriqueña de 54 años cambiará para siempre y estará dedicada a una rutina que sólo un juez del máximo tribunal tiene.

Durante el período de sesiones públicas, que se extiende las dos primeras semanas de los meses que van desde octubre hasta abril de cada año, de lunes a miércoles, Sotomayor llegará cerca de las 9 de la mañana al histórico edificio construido en 1935.

Ahí se encontrará con el equipo de ocho jueces compuesto por el presidente de la corte John Roberts, junto a John Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer y Samuel Alito.

La juez hispana ocupará el asiento ubicado en el extremo derecho del estrado, por ser el miembro más nuevo del tribunal. Ahí permanecerá en sesiones de una hora, en que cada parte tiene 30 minutos para exponer sus argumentos orales.
Según declaraciones que han realizado los actuales integrantes de la corte, este proceso es uno de los más interesantes que experimentan los magistrados, no porque sea un interrogatorio al abogado que está presentando el caso, sino porque “es una oportunidad para los jueces de plantear preguntas y en el fondo tener un diálogo entre colegas sobre la interpretación de la ley”.

Al término de las sesiones de la mañana, a las 1 PM, Sotomayor almorzará con los demás jueces en un comedor de la Corte Suprema, para luego continuar la jornada por la tarde, en caso que se hayan programado argumentos orales en la agenda.
Una vez que los casos sean escuchados, comenzará un largo proceso de discusión.
Durante el período en que no esté en sesiones, Sotomayor, así como sus colegas, revisará peticiones de casos para ser discutidos en la corte. Anualmente se presentan alrededor de 8 mil peticiones, de las cuales se aceptan cerca del 10 por ciento.

Así pasarán los días de la que alguna vez fue una niña nacida en el Bronx y educada en un proyecto habitacional de la parte sur de Nueva York.

Fuente: El Diario
Antonieta Cádiz

Protesta contra la Discriminacion de Puertorriqueños Contra Puertorriqueños

Este mensaje lo envie a Prometeo, en respuesta al comentario que hizo un tal Radames y lo cito aqui: "Me alegro que aclares que es una hispana, no puertorriqueña porque ella no nació en PR. Aquí a cualquiera que tiene ascendencia o apellidos puertorriqueños lo etiquetan "made in PR"; lo correcto sería decir "mujer de ascendencia puertorriqueña", no veo razón para endilgarle que sea de aquí cuando no nació aquí ni ha vivido aquí."

Esta es mi respuesta:

Yo no entiendo ese continuo desprecio a los puertorriqueños que nacen fuera de Puerto Rico, ya sea en EU, o China, Japon, España, Suiza, donde sea.

El origen etnico es algo que se lleva en la sangre, y que lo digan los chinos que nacen en Puerto Rico y son Chinos-Puertorriqueños, y los cubanos, que son Cubano-Puertorriqueños, etc.

¿Por que despreciar a una Puertorriqueña-Americana, que lleva en su sangre, su DNA, en su crianza, en todo, su puertorriqueñidad, y por supuesto, nacio en EU y lleva la ciudadania y se crio tambien en la cultura Americana?

Ese comentario tan racista y discriminatorio de Radames tiene el mismo razonamiento que utilizan los racistas americanos para decir que los unicos con genes anglosajones son los verdaderos americanos, y si acaso, que vea la pelicula Gangs of New York, donde esa tematica se trabaja.

Los judios-alemanes son ambas cosas; los judios-argentinos, son ambas cosas, y se sienten orgullosos de ser judios primero y luego lo otro. Asi pasa con los italo-americanos, irlandeses-americanos, rusos-americanos, etc. ¿Por que entonces negarle a los puertorriqueños ese derecho? lo cual es un derecho humano, y que tambien se lea Radames la Declaracion Universal de los Derechos Humanos. Esa mujer es una Puertorriqueña con orgullo, como lo son mis hijos, que nacieron aqui y son puertorriqueños de pura cepa.

La nacionalidad no se determina en donde naces, sino de donde vienes. Vasta ya con la discriminacion de puertorriqueños contra puertorriqueños.

La seleccion de Sotomayor fue la seleccion de una mujer puertorriqueña, de origen pobre, lo cual realza lo que los americanos tanto nos quieren negar, que aunque seamos puertorriqueños y pobres no tenemos la misma capacidad intelectual. Esa mujer tiene la misma capacidad intelectual que cualquier americano, ya sea de origen anglosajon, irlandes, italiano, judio, etc. para ejercer ese puesto maximo. Ese es el mensaje, ¿por que entonces empañarlo con tanta basofia?

La juez del Bronx

Ningún latino había llegado tan alto en las instituciones de Estados Unidos


Cuando Sonia Sotomayor visitó por primera vez la Casa Blanca, hace 11 años, siendo ya uno de los miembros más destacados de la judicatura del país, pensó en el milagro extraordinario que la había llevado desde el piso de protección oficial del sur del Bronx en el que pasó su infancia hasta aquellos enmoquetados salones que reunían la esencia del poder. ¡Cuánto más espectacular resultaba su presencia ayer en ese mismo escenario, pero al lado del presidente de Estados Unidos, que acababa de proponerla como juez del Tribunal Supremo!

La trayectoria de Sotomayor es, como la del hombre que la ha elegido, un testimonio vivo del sueño americano. Pero este caso en particular es, además, el reconocimiento a la contribución hecha por la comunidad hispana y a la influencia que ésta ha alcanzado hoy. Ningún latino había llegado nunca tan lejos dentro de las instituciones que gobiernan este país.

Se trata de un éxito descomunal, histórico y, en la medida en el que cargo es vitalicio, de efectos prolongados. Una mujer hispana de muy humilde origen, una sacrificada estudiante que supo vencer la marginación y el complejo de raza para triunfar en las aulas más exigentes, una luchadora de la causa social, posiblemente será ahora responsable de interpretar la Constitución de Estados Unidos, los textos de los padres fundadores.

Para los 45 millones de hispanos de este país, para quienes cada día aceptan los trabajos más duros en su afán de progreso, para otros muchos que han triunfado en los negocios y que se van abriendo paso en la política, el nombramiento de Sotomayor puede ser la prueba de que están en el lugar y en la dirección correctos.

Sonia Sotomayor nació hace 54 años en Nueva York dentro de una familia puertorriqueña. Su padre murió cuando ella tenía nueve años y, a partir de ahí, quedó en manos de su madre, que trabajaba como enfermera seis días por semana y siempre se las arregló para tenerle un plato de arroz con frijoles y mandarla a una escuela donde se respetase la tradición católica de su familia.

La muchacha, fanática seguidora de la serie de televisión Perry Mason, era brava y aplicada, y no sólo brilló en el colegio, sino que obtuvo después, y gracias a becas y créditos, un título de graduado cum laude por la Universidad de Princeton y una licenciatura de Derecho en la de Yale, la misma en la que estudiaron los Bush.

El primer presidente Bush fue, precisamente, quien la nombró en 1991 juez federal de apelaciones en Nueva York, el puesto que ocupa en la actualidad, aunque el cargo se lo debe más bien al pacto que entonces tenían los senadores demócratas y republicanos de ese Estado de proponer de forma alternativa las vacantes que se iban produciendo.

Hasta llegar ahí, Sotomayor conoció la dureza de la aplicación de la ley a pie de calle trabajando como ayudante del fiscal en Manhattan durante cinco años. Después aprendió también la complejidad del comercio internacional durante sus ocho años de práctica privada del Derecho en la firma Pavia & Harcourt.

Pero su fama se debe, sobre todo, a su trabajo como juez. Al frente de un tribunal de distrito en su ciudad natal, Sotomayor tuvo que pronunciarse en diferentes casos sobre protección a menores, discriminación racial y desprotección social, aunque no se le conocen aún pronunciamientos profesionales sobre asuntos más controvertidos, como el aborto.

La sentencia de Sotomayor que más impacto causó fue la que en 1995 acabó con la huelga del béisbol dando la razón a los jugadores y quitándosela a los propietarios de los clubes. Entonces se la elogió como la mujer que había salvado el béisbol.

Ya se ha encontrado en su historial alguna declaración polémica, como una pronunciada en la Universidad de California en la que decía que una mujer latina de origen humilde tenía menos posibilidad de cometer errores que un hombre blanco y rico. Se sabrá mucho más de ella cuando el minucioso proceso de investigación que conduce a la nominación del Senado se haya completado. De momento, abogados y fiscales que han pasado por su sala hablan de una mujer de estilo franco y, a veces, brusco, de una persona inteligente y honesta en la aplicación de la ley.


Fuente:El Pais

A. CAÑO

Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor has been a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since 1998. Before joining the appeals court, she served as a United States District Court judge for the Southern District of New York. On May 26, 2009, White House officials said that she was President Obama's choice to replace Justice David H. Souter, who plans to retire from the Supreme Court in June.

In what may be her best-known ruling, in April 1995 Judge Sotomayor issued an injunction against major league baseball owners, effectively ending a baseball strike of nearly eight months, the longest work stoppage in professional sports history, which had led to the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years.

On the district court bench, Judge Sotomayor earned a reputation as a sharp, outspoken and fearless jurist, someone who does not let powerful interests bully, rush or cow her into a decision. "She does not have much patience for people trying to snow her," said one lawyer in 1995, who had cases pending before the judge and asked not to be identified. "You can't do it."

While still in her 30s, Judge Sotomayor became the youngest judge in the Southern District of New York. She was the first American of Puerto Rican descent to be appointed to the Federal bench in New York City.

Born in the Bronx on June 23, 1954, she was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 8. Her father, a factory worker, died a year later. Her mother, a nurse at a methadone clinic, raised her daughter and a younger son on a modest salary.

Judge Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976 and became an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She spent five years as a prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney's office before entering private practice.

But she longed to return to public service, she said, inspired by the "Perry Mason" series she watched as a child. In 1992, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended the politically centrist lawyer to President George H. W. Bush, making good on a longstanding promise to appoint a Hispanic judge in New York.

On the Circuit Court, she has been involved in few controversial issues like abortion. Some of her most notable decisions came in child custody and complex business cases. Her most high-profile case involved New Haven's decision to toss out tests used to evaluate candidates for promotion in the fire department because there were no minority candidates at the top of the list.

She was part of a panel that rejected the challenge brought by white firefighters who scored high but were denied promotion. Frank Ricci, the lead plaintiff, argued that it was unfair he was denied promotion after he had studied intensively for the exam and even paid for special coaching to overcome his dyslexia.

The case produced a heated split in the Circuit Court and is now before the Supreme Court.

While Judge Sotomayor is not seen as an extreme liberal or a crusader on the bench, she has made some remarks that are likely to draw fire from Republicans during the confirmation process.

In 2001, she gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge "may and will make a difference in our judging.” In her speech, at a conference on diversity, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion - often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O'Connor - that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

"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," said Judge Sotomayor.

Another statement that has already drawn criticism from conservative bloggers came on a video that surfaced in May of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 that a "court of appeals is where policy is made." She then immediately adds: "And I know - I know this is on tape, and I should never say that because we don't make law. I know. O.K. I know. I'm not promoting it. I'm not advocating it. I'm - you know."
The video was of a panel discussion for law students interested in becoming clerks, and she was explaining the different experiences gained when working at district courts and appeals courts.

And a memorandum on Judge Sotomayor prepared by conservative groups pooling research on potential nominees cites a ruling in which she said a man could sue a private corporation for violating his constitutional rights while acting as a government contractor. Her decision was reversed by the Supreme Court, which said only individual agents, not corporations, may be sued for such violations

Fuente: The NY Times.
Foto AP

Obama Selects Sotomayor for Court

President Obama announced on Tuesday that he will nominate the federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, choosing a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation’s first Hispanic justice.

Judge Sotomayor, who stood next to the president during the announcement, was described by Mr. Obama as “an inspiring woman who I am confident will make a great justice.”

The president said he had made his decision after “deep reflection and careful deliberation,” and he made it clear that the judge’s inspiring personal story was crucial in his decision. Mr. Obama praised his choice as someone possessing “a rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law.”

But those essential qualities are not enough, the president said. Quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mr. Obama said, “The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience.” It is vitally important that a justice know “how the world works, and how ordinary people live,” the president said.

The judge described her selection as “the most humbling honor of my life.”

“I stand on the shoulders of countless people,” she said. But towering above all, she said, is her mother, Celina, who raised her alone after her father died. “I am all I am because of her,” Judge Sotomayor said, “and I am only half the woman she is.”

Judge Sotomayor is Mr. Obama’s first selection to the Supreme Court, and her nomination could trigger a struggle with Senate Republicans who have indicated they may oppose the nomination. But Democrats are within reach of the 60 votes necessary to choke off a filibuster, and Republicans concede that they have little hope of blocking confirmation barring unforeseen revelations.

Judge Sotomayor, 54, who has served for more than a decade on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York City, would become the nation’s 111th justice, replacing David H. Souter, who is retiring after 19 years on the bench. Although Justice Souter was appointed by the first President George Bush, he became a mainstay of the liberal faction on the court, and so his replacement by Judge Sotomayor likely would not shift the overall balance of power.

But her appointment would add a second woman to the nine-member court and give Hispanics their first seat. Her life story, mirroring in some ways Mr. Obama’s own, would add a different complexion to the panel, fulfilling the president’s stated desire to add diversity of background to the nation’s highest tribunal.

Judge Sotomayor’s father died when she was 9 years old, and her mother worked six-day weeks to earn enough money to send her and a brother to Catholic school. She got into Princeton University, where she once said she felt like “a visitor landing in an alien country,” but graduated summa cum laude.

Although she grew up in modest circumstances, the judge said, “I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.”

After Yale Law School, where she was editor of the Yale Law Journal, she worked for Robert M. Morgenthau in the district attorney’s office in New York and later was in private practice. The first President Bush nominated her in 1991 to the federal district court on the recommendation of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, and she was confirmed a year later. President Bill Clinton decided to elevate her to the appeals court in 1997, and she was confirmed a year later.

Judge Sotomayor has said her ethnicity and gender are important factors in serving on the bench, a point that could generate debate. “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,” she said in a 2002 lecture.

She also once said at a conference that a “court of appeals is where policy is made,” a statement that has drawn criticism from conservatives who saw it as a sign of judicial activism. Judge Sotomayor seemed to understand at the time that she was making a controversial statement, adding that, “I know this is on tape, and I should never say that, because we don’t make law.”

Conservatives quickly pointed to such statements after word of her selection on Tuesday.

“Judge Sotomayor is a liberal activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, an activist group. “She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.”

White House officials concluded that such statements, while perhaps providing fodder for opponents, would not be problematic enough to hinder her confirmation. Some officials have said in recent days that they relish the prospect of Republicans standing up against a Hispanic woman with her life story, because it would only damage the G.O.P. with a key voting bloc.

The president sought to defuse some of those charges in advance, declaring his confidence that she has “a recognition of the limits of the judicial role.”

Indeed, in nominating the first Hispanic justice, Mr. Obama may appeal to a large and growing constituency whose party loyalty is still very much in play. Hispanic groups have expressed excitement about the idea of one of their own serving on the high court. (Some scholars argue whether Benjamin Cardozo was really the first Hispanic justice, but with his Portuguese-Jewish background, he never identified himself as a Hispanic.)

On the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor has not been involved in many hotly disputed decisions, but one that she participated in is before the Supreme Court right now. As part of a panel, she voted to uphold New Haven’s decision to throw out a set of fire department promotion tests because no minority candidates made the top of the list. White firefighters who scored high but were denied promotion are appealing that ruling.

As a district judge, she briefly earned fame in 1995 by ending a Major League Baseball strike, ruling in favor of players and against the owners, who she said were trying to subvert the labor system.

At the White House announcement, the East Room filled with members of the legal community and several Hispanic leaders, who received calls and e-mails on Tuesday morning to attend the ceremony and applauded enthusiastically when Mr. Obama entered the room with the nominee. To keep the decision secret, outside groups were not notified until about two hours before the event began.

The president conducted a face-to-face interview of Judge Sotomayor on Thursday at the White House, officials said. She was the second finalist to be interviewed, following Judge Diane P. Wood of Chicago.

Mr. Obama called her at 9 p.m. on Monday, officials said, to inform her that she was his choice. She traveled to Washington late Monday evening.

The president reached his decision over the long Memorial Day weekend, aides said, but it was not disclosed until Tuesday morning when he informed his advisers of his choice less than three hours before the announcement was scheduled to take place.

Mr. Obama telephoned Judge Sotomayor at 9 p.m. on Monday, officials said, advising her that she was his choice to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Later Monday night, Mr. Obama called the three other finalists — Judge Diane P. Wood of Chicago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Solicitor General Elena Kagan — to inform them that he had selected Judge Sotomayor.

Fuente:The The New York Times
ByPETER BAKER and JEFF ZELENY

Obama Chooses Sotomayor for Supreme Court

President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court, officials said Tuesday, and has scheduled an announcement for 10:15 a.m. at the White House.

If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.

The president reached his decision over the long Memorial Day weekend, aides said, but it was not disclosed until Tuesday morning when he informed his advisers of his choice less than three hours before the announcement was scheduled to take place.

The president narrowed his list to four, according to people close to the selection process, including Federal Appeals Judge Diane P. Wood of Chicago, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

In what may be her best-known ruling, Judge Sotomayor issued an injunction against major league baseball owners in April 1995, effectively ending a baseball strike of nearly eight months, the longest work stoppage in professional sports history, which had led to the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years.

Fuente: The New York Times

By Jeff Zeleny