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Judge [Sotomayor]'s Rulings Are Exhaustive but Often Narrow
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Race
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| Contributor | Brandonius Maximus |
| Last Edited | Brandonius Maximus May 26, 2009 06:43pm |
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| Category | Profile |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:40:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | WASHINGTON — Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial opinions are marked by diligence, depth and unflashy competence. If they are not always a pleasure to read, they are usually models of modern judicial craftsmanship, which prizes careful attention to the facts in the record and a methodical application of layers of legal principles.
Judge Sotomayor has issued no major decisions concerning abortion, the death penalty, gay rights or national security. In cases involving criminal defendants, employment discrimination and free speech, her rulings are more liberal than not.
But they reveal no larger vision, seldom appeal to history and studiously avoid quotable language. Judge Sotomayor’s decisions are, instead, almost always technical, incremental and exhaustive, considering all of the relevant precedents and supporting even completely uncontroversial propositions with elaborate footnotes.
All of which makes her remarkably cursory treatment last year of the discrimination claims of white and Hispanic firefighters in New Haven so baffling. The unsigned decision by Judge Sotomayor and two other judges, which affirmed dismissal of the firefighters’ claims, contained a single paragraph of reasoning.
The brief decision in the case, which bristles with interesting and important legal questions about how the government may take account of race in employment, will probably attract more questions at her Supreme Court confirmation hearings than any of the many hundreds of much more deeply considered decisions she has written.
Judge Sotomayor’s current court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, is a collegial one. But Judge Jose A. Cabranes, writing for himself and five other judges, used unusually tough language in dissenting from the full court’s refusal to rehear the firefighters’ case. |
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