Obama's first SCOTUS pick

[yguy]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

I know a crack whore.

But the question is: do you know Texas Lynn?

[D. Scarlatti]

Bill Kristol is as a dumb as Rocky:

"Where policy is made."

That's how, in 2005, reported Supreme Court pick Sonia Sotomayor characterized the Court of Appeals,* where she now serves. It's undoubtedly even truer, in her eyes, about the Supreme Court.

Well, duh. Obviously, where SCOTUS is dealing with a split among the circuits.

The debate over her confirmation could be an interesting "teaching moment"—a politically important teaching moment—for constitutionalists who would beg to differ from Sotomayor's vision of the appropriate role of the federal judiciary.

Ah yes, those heroic "constitutionalists." I don't know if a "teaching moment" is even possible for the congenitally ineducable, but Sotomayor's remark was hardly a "vision," but simply a description and her "backpedaling" was a joke, knowing full well how idiotic political conservatives would seize upon it. She was certainly right about that.

As for Kristol, has he ever been right about anything?

* The Courts of Appeals, plural, as compared to the district courts in context of the question she was asked, which had to do with the differing experience clerking amongst the hierarchy of courts.

[Texas Lynn]

Originally Posted by yguy

But the question is: do you know Texas Lynn?

I think what yguy is saying is he's doing a monkey see, monkey do kind of thing: 'cause I'm afor it he's agin it. It makes him happy.

[Texas Lynn]

[yguy]

Originally Posted by Texas Lynn

I think what yguy is saying is he's doing a monkey see, monkey do kind of thing: 'cause I'm afor it he's agin it.

No, I'm just noting that it's damn near impossible to go wrong opposing whatever is deemed good by evil "people" like you.

[D. Scarlatti]

Good to see ytroll's brought its customary penetrating constitutional analysis to the thread.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by yguy

But the question is: do you know Texas Lynn?

Non sequitur.

[Texas Lynn]

Originally Posted by yguy

No, I'm just noting that it's damn near impossible to go wrong opposing whatever is deemed good by evil "people" like you.

yguy wouldn't know 'evil' if it bit him in the tuchis.

[Texas Lynn]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Non sequitur.

Every yguy post is.

[D. Scarlatti]

Reporter is on teh case!!!1

Do conservatives even know what the courts do?

Hell, Scalia made some policy today. For the State of Louisiana!

[ChuckF]

lol

Originally Posted by Norm Coleman

When I am re-elected, I intend to review Judge Sotomayor's record using this process.

[Garnet]

One of these days, teh stoopid is going to cause my head to asplode.

For realz.

[Texas Lynn]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

lol

LOL!

[California Tanker]

Certainly the opinion in Maloney v Cuomo (She sided with the majority) did not seem to be soundly appreciated by some of the legally-inclined here.
Two interesting firearms cases just showed up. - Page 9 - Freethought Forum

I guess I really need to check in on the Ricci case. Scotusblog seems to indicate it is likely her side will be reversed.

Otherwise, she does seem to have an impressive enough CV. Some opinions I agree with, some I don't. Seems about normal.

NTM

[D. Scarlatti]

It's funny how conservative "commentators" are pleading for empathy for the Ricci plaintiffs.

Evidently they don't have much else, aside from calling her dumb, which is also pretty rich.

[California Tanker]

On less subjective matters, CNN indicates that not counting Ricci, six cases on which she joined the majority had made it to SCOTUS for consideration. Five out of six, SCOTUS said she was wrong, occasionally unanimously so. Should Ricci, in fact, be reversed, that would make six out of seven.

These stats aren't a warm and fuzzy. Granted, SCOTUS takes the difficult cases, and 50-50 would be 'about right', but her percentage is a little off.

NTM

[D. Scarlatti]

In how many opinions has she joined the majority?

These stats aren't a warm and fuzzy.

In fact they're meaningless.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

On less subjective matters, CNN indicates that not counting Ricci, six cases on which she joined the majority had made it to SCOTUS for consideration. Five out of six, SCOTUS said she was wrong, occasionally unanimously so. Should Ricci, in fact, be reversed, that would make six out of seven.

These stats aren't a warm and fuzzy. Granted, SCOTUS takes the difficult cases, and 50-50 would be 'about right', but her percentage is a little off.

NTM

Without knowing how many total cases there were, out of which 6 went to SCOTUS, there's nothing from which to create any statistic. Unless I am missing something, which is highly possible.

Is that 6 cases out of 500 or what?.

[D. Scarlatti]

In 17 years? Thousands.

six cases on which she joined the majority

Five. One was a decision of the district court.

[LadyShea]

Then that 5 or 6 doesn't mean anything, correct? I am not much for stats and law and such.

[D. Scarlatti]

Means even less where Souter voted to uphold her (three of the five).

Somebody is yet to count her reversals by the Court of Appeals while she was a district judge.

stats and law

They don't mix well, at least this type of stats don't. You have to look at each case and the reasoning. They're all different, and by the time they get to SCOTUS, they're all very close and very contentious.

[LadyShea]

Help me a bit more. If a court makes generally good decisions (meaning nothing much to appeal because they are sound), then they wouldn't have many cases go to SCOTUS, or wouldn't have many cases be accepted to be reviewed by SCOTUS or whatever, correct?

[D. Scarlatti]

I hate to say it, but it depends on many, many things.

For example, you always hear that the 9th Circuit is the most often reversed? Because the 9th Circuit is twice as big as the next largest circuit, and hears at least twice as many cases as the next largest circuit.

Also, there are many circuit court decisions that SCOTUS would reverse, but SCOTUS doesn't accept them. Again, for a whole variety of reasons.

The fact of the matter is this: Sotomayor appears to be a very moderate judge, and seems to have no trend of, for example, siding consistently with plaintiffs against corporations. In fact she seems to be a bit tougher in criminal cases than Souter (always bear Souter in mind, because that's who she's replacing).

Furthermore she has little or no record in cases involving the conservatives' hot button social issues: abortion, religion, etc.

She's a slam dunk, a pretty brilliant move by Obama, and conservatives are going to make utter fools of themselves in their attempts to attack her. And, politically, risk alienating Latinos, who are rejoicing in her nomination.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

On less subjective matters, CNN indicates that not counting Ricci, six cases on which she joined the majority had made it to SCOTUS for consideration. Five out of six, SCOTUS said she was wrong, occasionally unanimously so. Should Ricci, in fact, be reversed, that would make six out of seven.

These stats aren't a warm and fuzzy. Granted, SCOTUS takes the difficult cases, and 50-50 would be 'about right', but her percentage is a little off.

NTM

538 has a post on this:
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Washington Times: Supremes Uphold Sotomayor Opinions at Above-Average Rate

It's 3 of 5 cases that were reversed, first of all. Which isn't a very high number anyway, so making a conclusion about how she's "often reversed" doesn't make any sense. If it were 10 of 15, it might be relevant.

Furthermore, as Nate elaborates, the SC reverses about 75% of the cases it does decide to hear anyway - since they generally only hear cases that have a decent chance of being overturned.

And finally, since Sotomayor has authored over 150 opinions, her reversal rate is 3 of >150, not 3 of 5. They chose to hear those 5 because there was a chance they'd be overturned, so they're not representative of her overall work. Apparently, the very large majority of the time, people either don't appeal her decisions, or the SC decides not to revisit her cases at all.

So that statistic is... pretty much meaningless.

[D. Scarlatti]

Ken Blackwell, the former Sec'y of State (R) for Ohio was on Fox & Friends this morning repeating this 60% reversal nonsense. Also some idiocy about Sotomayor being one of only three Court of Appeals judges who believes local governments may restrict firearms despite federal mandates otherwise, which is complete bullshit on several levels (I predicted yesterday this will be the next moronic GOP talking point).

And Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online said Sotomayor is not very smart (unlike Ramesh Ponnuru, who doesn't even know there are two separate due process clauses in the Constitution) and that she was exactly like Harriet Miers, in that Obama picked Sotomayor as a sop to Latinos while Bush picked Miers as a sop to fundagelicals. Except it was fundagelicals who shitcanned Miers. The conservative stupidity is pretty entertaining, and it's only just begun.