Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court

[KMAN]

WTH?

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court - Washington Times

 

[RodISHI]

WTH?

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court - Washington Times

380 cases. Five heard by the Supreme court. Three overturned. Twisted OP Kman. That is less than 1 percent. Unless you can come up with a better numbers for averages on reversed decisions it looks like there is not much to say here.

 

[DiamondDave]

Weird thing is I have heard some things about reversal rates with her.. but I have not seen 1 reported # being the same.. would like some cold hard and verified stats on this

 

[sealybobo]

WTH?

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court - Washington Times

Mr. Gibbs dismissed questions about Judge Sotomayor's reversal rate, saying she wrote 380 majority opinions during her 11 years on the appeals court. Of those 380 opinions, the Supreme Court heard five of the cases and overturned her on three.

"The totality of the record is one that's more important to look at, rather than, like I said, some out-of-context or clipped way of looking at it," Mr. Gibbs said.

Still, Republicans will be under pressure from conservative and libertarian activist groups.......

See, Libertarians are just another branch of the GOP. Its like Bud and Bud Light. I can hardly tell the difference.

 

[WillowTree]

three, soon maybe four! is this good or not good? doyathink???

 

[George Costanza]

WTH?

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court - Washington Times

I'm sorry - that is flat wrong. She has had 3 reversals in over 300 of her decisions.

 

[del]

WTH?

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court - Washington Times

I'm sorry - that is flat wrong. She has had 3 reversals in over 300 of her decisions.

no, it's factually correct, but not particularly indicative of anything.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I think this is a better discussion of the empathy judge

Questions for Sotomayor - WSJ.com

Yesterday President Barack Obama announced his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. She is federal circuit court judge Sonia Sotomayor. What sorts of questions should senators and the American people ask a nominee to the Supreme Court?

Let's assume Ms. Sotomayor will refuse to answer questions about any of the hot-button issues that the confirmation battle will focus on: constitutional questions about abortion, gay marriage, the rights of terrorist detainees, and the like. No recent nominee to the court has directly answered questions about particular issues that are likely to come before the court. While this may be frustrating to their interlocutors, nominees are prudent not to prejudge in the abstract issues they will likely have to decide in the context of specific cases.

But the nominee should answer questions about her judicial philosophy. Mr. Obama has the prerogative of nomination, but the confirmation process serves as an important check on whether a nominee's philosophy is acceptable to the American people. Even with a strongly Democratic Senate, the process should be more than a rubber stamp. The stakes are high when we give a person life tenure to decide some of the most important issues facing our country. Here are some questions for Ms. Sotomayor:

- Do you believe that judges should use "empathy" to decide cases? If so, what's the difference between empathy and judicial activism? The president has emphasized empathy as a paramount judicial quality. Polls show, however, that Americans want moderate judges who follow the law, not their hearts. Chief Justice John Roberts said in his confirmation hearings that judges should act like umpires -- calling the plays, not making them. Mr. Obama has suggested he wants a home-run hitter.

- Do you believe that interpretations of the Constitution should evolve to keep up with the times? If so, how would you decide when the Constitution needs updating? The president has said he believes that the Constitution has to change to keep up with the times, and in Ms. Sotomayor he has probably not chosen a candidate who believes in following the original meaning of the text. Nonetheless, constitutional text and original meaning should provide some constraint on the scope of interpretation. The nominee should be able to state some guidelines and limits for interpretation, including whether and how she would consider international law or the constitutional law of other nations.

- Should Supreme Court justices be bound by precedent? All justices sometimes overrule previous decisions. So when is it appropriate to do so? Of course, this is the question that senators use to probe nominees of Republican presidents to see whether they would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. For Ms. Sotomayor the question is whether she perceives any limits on the ability of the Supreme Court to read new rights into the Constitution.

- What is the court's role when interpreting ambiguous laws? The confirmation process often focuses on constitutional questions that never get directly answered, but a great deal of law is made (and unmade) when the court interprets statutes. Statutes, not the Constitution, regulate financial markets, the environment, our workplaces, and many forms of private discrimination. So it matters how they are interpreted.

Statutes are enacted through a difficult constitutional process. They require passage by the House and Senate and the president's signature. Justice Antonin Scalia argues that this finely wrought procedure requires judges to stick to the text of statutes and follow their plain meaning. Justice Stephen Breyer has argued, to the contrary, that judges should interpret statutes pragmatically to promote good consequences. Ms. Sotomayor needs to identify where she lies on this spectrum.

- What matters most, the law or the result? Or put another way, when the law requires a result that you don't like, what do you do? This might seem like an easy question. Judges interpret the law, they don't make it. That was the view of President George W. Bush and his nominees to the high court. Mr. Obama has made it clear, however, that he thinks the law should often be about results -- that the Constitution evolves to reflect modern times and statutes may be twisted to achieve justice. Any judge worth the name recognizes that the law will sometimes lead to a result of which she personally disapproves. When this happens, the judge must implement the law, not her personal preferences.

The president and Congress are elected to focus on results, to get things done, to bring about change. They can choose to implement empathetic policies that favor the weak and pull up the disadvantaged. In our constitutional system, however, the judiciary does not simply duplicate this political process. The Senate and the American people should make sure that a nominee to the Supreme Court understands the difference.

 

[DiamondDave]

Empathy judgments have no place.. this is about letter of the law and interpretation of the law based on the intent of the constitution

The court is not a 'feel good' place that sets aside the law for the sake of results

 

[George Costanza]

WTH?

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court - Washington Times

I'm sorry - that is flat wrong. She has had 3 reversals in over 300 of her decisions.

no, it's factually correct, but not particularly indicative of anything.

No, it is NOT factually correct. If she really had an 80% reversal rate, that would be indicitive, believe me. But she doesn't. Limbaugh bleats that she does - but he is (being charitable here) incorrect.

 

[JW Frogen]

Sodomyer is guud anal sex.

 

[jillian]

wow... another BS thread from the kayster... who'd a thunk it?

approximately 300 published decisions... .

6 went to the supreme court.

because of the nature of the court, they don't generally take cases unless they want to re-evaluate them... so the rate of reversal for cases granted certiorari is approximately 75%

sotomayor had 3 out of her 300 cases reversed. if you look at it as percentage of her cases, it's about 1%. it may be 60% of the cases that the court took, which is still way ahead of the curve. how many of her decisions did the court refuse to review when it received a petition for cert?

you following any of that? ask mommy. maybe she can explain it.

i really hate when brain dead morons who don't know their subject start spewing... .

 

[editec]

Empathy judgments have no place.. this is about letter of the law and interpretation of the law based on the intent of the constitution

The court is not a 'feel good' place that sets aside the law for the sake of results

If one could merely follow the "letter of the law", one would not need judges.

Those of you who imagine that laws are not subject to interpretation simply amaze me.

For example...reread the second amendment.

It is written in such convoluted way that it requires someone to interpret its meaning.

It could just as easily be interpreted to mean that state militias (and those citizen in them) have the right to bear arms.

Wodds are not mathamatic formulas, folks.

If they were there's never be any confusion about them, and lord knows there's plenty of that in the law, in liberature, in the Bible, and on and on and on.

Hell...half the debates we have here are based on nothing more than two people reading the same thing and arriving at plausible but different interpreatations of what those words meant.

 

[johnwk]

I think this is a better discussion of the empathy judge

[Questions for Sotomayor][had to remove link]

- Do you believe that interpretations of the Constitution should evolve to keep up with the times?

Will our Senate Judiciary Committee ask Sonia Sotomayor the big question?


If that question was to be asked, it would go something like this.

Sonia, will you please articulate to this Committee the most fundamental rule of constitutional law and then give your assurance to this Committee to abide by that rule if you are approved to be the next Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States?


Will you give this committee and the American People who we represent your assurance to abide by the most fundamental rule of constitutional law regardless of your personal sense of justice, regardless of public opinion, and regardless of whatever pressure may be put upon you to ignore the foundation upon which honorable S.C. decisions are made when a particular part of our Constitution is brought before the Court and is alleged to have been violated?

The sad thing is, Sonia Sotomayor, while sitting on the 2nd Circuit Court, has already proven to be disloyal to the oath of office she took, has ignored our written Constitution and the intentions under which it was adopted, and, she blatantly thumbed her nose at the most fundamental rule of constitutional law when she refused to address a specific 14th Amendment claim brought before the Court in the case Ricci v. DeStefano and sided with public servants of New Haven, Connecticut, who refused earned promotions to 18 firefighters because they were not the right skin color!



And just what are the intentions for which the 14th Amendment was adopted? A research of the House and Senate debates which framed both the 1st Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment, which was intended to incorporate the objectives of the first Civil Rights Act into the Constitution and make them constitutional, documents the very intentions for which the 14th Amendment was adopted and were very limited in their scope. The objective was to prohibit state legislation and government force to be used to advance discrimination based upon “race, color, or previous condition of slavery…” This protection was blatantly ignored by Sonia Sotomayor --- a protection summed up as follows up by Rep. Shallabarger, a primary supporter of the 14th Amendment when it was being debated:

“Its whole effect is not to confer or regulate rights, but to require that whatever of these enumerated rights and obligations are imposed by State laws shall be for and upon all citizens alike without distinctions based on race or former condition of slavery…It permits the States to say that the wife may not testify, sue or contract. It makes no law as to this. Its whole effect is to require that whatever rights as to each of the enumerated civil (not political) matters the States may confer upon one race or color of the citizens shall be held by all races in equality…It does not prohibit you from discriminating between citizens of the same race, or of different races, as to what their rights to testify, to inherit &c. shall be. But if you do discriminate, it must not be on account of race, color or former conditions of slavery. That is all. If you permit a white man who is an infidel to testify, so you must a colored infidel. Self-evidently this is the whole effect of this first section. It secures-not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens- equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any race.” ___ see: Rep. Shallabarger, Congressional Globe, 1866, page 1293[was not allowed to post link to Cong. Globe]

And just what is the most fundamental rule which our Judiciary Committee will, in all probability, not raise and question Sotomayor on? That rule was eloquently articulated more than two hundred years ago by Thomas Jefferson:


"On every question of construction [of the Constitution], carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322.


Heck, as impossible as it may be to believe, even our Senate Judiciary Committee is aware of the most fundamental rule of constitutional law even though I have yet to hear any member ask a Supreme Court nominee if they will follow it:


"In construing the Constitution we are compelled to give it such interpretation as will secure the result intended to be accomplished by those who framed it and the people who adopted it...A construction which would give the phrase...a meaning differing from the sense in which it was understood and employed by the people when they adopted the Constitution, would be as unconstitutional as a departure from the plain and express language of the Constitution."_____ Senate Report No. 21, 42nd Cong. 2d Session 2 (1872), reprinted in Alfred Avins, The Reconstruction Amendments’ Debates 571 (1967),



Expounding upon our Constitution is not a matter of “interpretation” as some would have us believe…it is a task of “documentation”! Enemies of our constitutional system wish to ignore the recorded intentions for which our Constitution [each article, section, clause and amendment] was adopted in order to then be free to make the Constitution mean whatever they wish it to mean. Let us look at some additional authoritative sources:


Intent of constitution


16 Am Jur 2d Constitutional law
Par. 92. Intent of framers and adopters as controlling.

The fundamental principle of constitutional construction is that effect must be given to the intent of the framers of the organic law and of the people adopting it. This is the polestar in the construction of constitutions, all other principles of construction are only rules or guides to aid in the determination of the intention of the constitution’s framers.

“A constitutional provision is to be construed, as statutes are, to the end that the intent of those drafting and voting for it be realized."(Mack v Heuck (App) 14 Ohio L Abs 237)


"No part of the constitution should be so construed as to defeat its purpose or the intent of the people in adopting it."Pfingst v State (3d Dept) 57 App Div 2d 163 .


"the rule being that a written constitution is to be interpreted in the same spirit in which it was produced" Wells v Missouri P.R. Co.,110Mo 286,19SW 530.


"Where language used in a constitution is capable of two constructions, it must be so construed as to carry into effect the purpose of the constitutional convention.” Ratliff v Beal, 74 Miss.247,20 So 865 .


"In construing federal constitutional provisions, the United States Supreme Court has regularly looked for the purpose the framers sought to accomplish.”Everson v Board of Education, 330 US 1, 91 L Ed 711,67 S Ct 504, 168 ALR 1392.


"The primary principle underlying an interpretation of constitutions is that the intent is the vital part and the essence of the law." Rasmussen v Baker, 7 Wyo 117, 50 P 819.


“The intention of the law maker constitutes the law.” U.S. vs. Freeman, 3 HOW 565; U.S. vs. Babbit, 1 Black 61; Slater vs. Cave, 3 Ohio State 80; Stewart vs. Kahn, 11 Wall, 78 U.S. 493, 504


“The intention of the legislature, when discovered, must prevail, any rule of construction declared by previous acts to the contrary notwithstanding.” 4 Dall 144


"If the Constitution was ratified under the belief, sedulously propagated on all sides, that such protection was afforded, would it not now be a fraud upon the whole people to give a different construction to its powers?" ___ Justice Story


Now ask yourself, which Senate Judiciary Committee member [was not allowed to post link to Committee members] will have the fortitude to question Sonia Sotomayor on the most fundamental rule of constitutional law, and ask her why she was derelict in not applying it in Ricci v. DeStefano? Perhaps you may want to forward this post to your favorite member of our Senate Judiciary Committee and see if they respond to your inquiry.


Regards,


JWK


Those who reject abiding by the intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was agree to, as those intentions and beliefs may be documented from historical records, wish to remove the anchor and rudder of our constitutional system so they may then be free to “interpret” the Constitution to mean whatever they wish it to mean.

 

[del]

I'm sorry - that is flat wrong. She has had 3 reversals in over 300 of her decisions.

no, it's factually correct, but not particularly indicative of anything.

No, it is NOT factually correct. If she really had an 80% reversal rate, that would be indicitive, believe me. But she doesn't. Limbaugh bleats that she does - but he is (being charitable here) incorrect.

she's had 5 cases reviewed and 3 have been overturned. that's 60%.
a sixth case is under review and there are indications it will be overturned as well. then her reversal rate will be 66% or if it's not overturned, 50%.
these are facts- and as i stated previously, not particularly indicative of anything.

now untwist your knickers and turn off the radio.

 

[Xenophon]

now untwist your knickers and turn off the radio.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

 

[jillian]

she's had 5 cases reviewed and 3 have been overturned. that's 60%.
a sixth case is under review and there are indications it will be overturned as well. then her reversal rate will be 66% or if it's not overturned, 50%.
these are facts- and as i stated previously, not particularly indicative of anything.

now untwist your knickers and turn off the radio.

and you've read why the numbers are bogus....

what percentage of her decisions did the court reject cert on?

but if you want to do the 60% thing, that's still way ahead of the court's 75% reversal rate.

it's just another kayster special...lots of noice, no merit.

 

[editec]

..still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest..

 

[del]

she's had 5 cases reviewed and 3 have been overturned. that's 60%.
a sixth case is under review and there are indications it will be overturned as well. then her reversal rate will be 66% or if it's not overturned, 50%.
these are facts- and as i stated previously, not particularly indicative of anything.

now untwist your knickers and turn off the radio.

and you've read why the numbers are bogus....

what percentage of her decisions did the court reject cert on?

but if you want to do the 60% thing, that's still way ahead of the court's 75% reversal rate.

it's just another kayster special...lots of noice, no merit.

as i said, not particularly indicative of anything

 

[jillian]

she's had 5 cases reviewed and 3 have been overturned. that's 60%.
a sixth case is under review and there are indications it will be overturned as well. then her reversal rate will be 66% or if it's not overturned, 50%.
these are facts- and as i stated previously, not particularly indicative of anything.

now untwist your knickers and turn off the radio.

and you've read why the numbers are bogus....

what percentage of her decisions did the court reject cert on?

but if you want to do the 60% thing, that's still way ahead of the court's 75% reversal rate.

it's just another kayster special...lots of noice, no merit.

as i said, not particularly indicative of anything

i missed that.

but still and all, it's the fallacious assignment of percentages that is troubling.