Unusual Detail in Sotomayor Rulings

Washington Post Analysis: Experts Say Supreme Court Nominee's Uncommon Detail Close to Overstepping Traditional Role

(Washington Post)  This story was written by Jerry Markon.

---

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's opinions show support for the rights of criminal defendants and suspects, skepticism of corporations, and sympathy for plaintiffs alleging discrimination, an analysis of her record by The Washington Post found. And she has delivered those rulings with a level of detail considered unusual for an appellate judge.

During nearly 11 years on the federal appeals court in New York, Sotomayor has made herself an expert on subjects ranging from the intricacies of automobile mechanisms to the homicide risks posed by the city's population density. Her writings have often offered a granular analysis of every piece of evidence in criminal trials, and sometimes read as if she were retrying cases from her chambers.

Legal experts said Sotomayor's rulings fall within the mainstream of those by Democratic-appointed judges. But some were critical of her style, saying it comes close to overstepping the traditional role of appellate judges, who give considerable deference to the judges and juries that observe testimony and are considered the primary finders of fact.

"It seems an odd use of judicial time, given the very heavy caseload in the 2nd Circuit, to spend endless hours delving into the minutiae of the record," said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and an authority on federal courts.

Adrienne Urrutia Wisenberg, a Washington criminal appellate lawyer, said appellate judges "are not in the role of reweighing the credibility of a witness. Someone's demeanor is not reflected on a transcript."

But Wisenberg said she admires Sotomayor's "tenacious trial lawyer's personality," and Dan Himmelfarb, a Washington lawyer and former clerk to conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, said Sotomayor is "extraordinarily thorough, and a judge would ordinarily be praised for writing thorough opinions."

To examine the record of Sotomayor, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin Monday, The Post reviewed all 46 of her cases in which the 2nd Circuit issued a divided ruling, nearly 900 pages of opinions. Although Sotomayor has heard about 3,000 cases, judicial scholars say split decisions provide the most revealing window into ideology because in such cases the law and precedent are often unclear, making them similar to cases heard by the Supreme Court. President Obama, who nominated Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter, has said Supreme Court justices will be in agreement 95 percent of the time.

Sotomayor's votes in split cases were compared with those of other judges through a database that tracks federal appellate decisions nationwide, a random sampling of 5,400 cases. The database codes decisions as "liberal" or "conservative" based on what its creator, University of South Carolina political scientist Donald Songer, says are common definitions. Votes in favor of a defendant, for example, are classified as liberal, while those supporting prosecutors are called conservative.

Sotomayor's votes came out liberal 59 percent of the time, compared with 52 percent for other judges who, like her, were appointed by Democratic presidents. Democratic appointees overall were 13 percent more liberal than Republican appointees, according to the database analysis.

Experts said the results show that Sotomayor's ascension would probably not alter the balance of a high court closely divided between conservatives and liberals such as Souter. But they also provide a more nuanced picture of the 17-year federal judge than those offered by her supporters and her critics.

The White House has portrayed Sotomayor as a tough-on-crime moderate who favors the "judicial restraint" often sought by Republicans, while conservatives call her a liberal activist whose decisions are influenced by ideology and her Latina heritage.

"She looks like a classic Democrat," Songer said. "I don't think it's fair to classify her as tough on crime. I would use the term 'moderately liberal,' not 'moderate.' But she certainly seems to be in the mainstream of Democratic judges."

The split decisions, which are heavy on the criminal and business cases that tend to dominate the Supreme Court's docket, show Sotomayor voting to overturn convictions or sentences eight times, at a rate comparable to that of other Democratic-appointed judges. Six times, she affirmed them.

In one case, Sotomayor and seven mostly Democratic colleagues voted to set free a convicted murderer who did not contest his guilt but had been tried on what the court called the wrong murder charge. In another, she joined an opinion that cited flawed jury instructions in throwing out a man's conviction for enticing someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl into sex.

And when she threw out a life prison term for a convicted heroin dealer, ordering that he be resentenced, Sotomayor wrote that judges should not show "slavish adherence" to the "literal terms" of then-mandatory sentencing guidelines when their language is flawed. The view echoed her criticism of the guidelines from the bench that became an issue in her 1997 confirmation hearings.

At those hearings, Republicans criticized Sotomayor for apologizing to a defendant for a mandatory minimum sentence she imposed and for calling the sentence an "abomination." She told senators that the apology expressed her frustration over a feature in the sentencing rules that Congress later changed, conceded she should not have used the word "abomination" and expressed general support for the guidelines.

Other cases displayed Sotomayor's support for First Amendment protections, campaign finance reforms challenged by conservatives and privacy rights. She ruled against corporations in six of eight business cases.

Although her decisions are filled with citations of the law and precedent, Sotomayor once pointed to "powerful policy considerations" in allowing a lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard to go forward, and she worried about damage to U.S.-British relations in arguing that British subjects should have access to U.S. courts. Conservatives have criticized Sotomayor for saying in 2005 that "the Court of Appeals is where policy is made. I know this is on tape, and I should never say that." The White House has defended her, saying the remark was taken out of context.

Sotomayor, appointed to the appeals court by President Bill Clinton, is a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and a trial judge, and acquaintances say that background has helped shape her judicial style. She overturns lower courts at roughly the same rate as other Democratic appointees. Her writings are full of details from the trial record, especially in criminal matters, where she often meticulously analyzes witness testimony.

When she reinstated a verdict against Ford Motor Co. in 2002 in the lawsuit of a woman who said her van suddenly accelerated without her touching the gas pedal, Sotomayor wrote that one witness's testimony "requires two simultaneous malfunctions in the cruise control circuitry. The first is an open ground connection to the speed amplifier, resulting from a loose or broken wire."

Last year, in voting to overturn a firearms defendant's sentence, Sotomayor joined a Democratic appointee and a Republican in analyzing whether New York City's dense population puts bystanders at greater risk from gunfire than those elsewhere. She wrote a separate dissent, acknowledging that the trial judge's opinion on the subject was "detailed'' but citing government reports and newspaper articles to argue it was "insufficient" to support a sentence above the range recommended by federal guidelines.

A Republican appointee who disagreed wrote that "appellate courts are not factfinders. . . . I do not understand it to be our role . . . to engage in this kind of dissection of the empirical evidence cited by the district court. Nor is it to identify competing studies or news articles pointing in other directions."

In 2004, Sotomayor appeared to go beyond the facts established at trial in arguing that two teenage girls were illegally strip-searched at Connecticut juvenile detention facilities. Their lawsuit against the state was dismissed by a federal judge but reinstated in an opinion written by a Democratic 2nd Circuit appointee, who said four of the strip searches at issue were unlawful but four others were legal.

Sotomayor dissented, arguing that all were illegal and blasting any strip search as "severely intrusive." Citing documents from pretrial discovery, she broke down all 34 strip searches at the facilities in which contraband was found on a prisoner from 1995 to 2000 -- searches that were not part of the lawsuit. She concluded that there was "absolutely no evidence that suspicionless strip searches were necessary."

(The Supreme Court last month voiced skepticism of strip-searching teenage girls, ruling 8 to 1 that Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old girl when they strip-searched her on suspicion that she might be hiding ibuprofen in her underwear.)

Hellman, the law professor, called Sotomayor's approach "a kind of carpet-bombing, a relentless mustering of facts. She goes well beyond what is necessary for the case and is determined not to just defeat the other side, but to annihilate it."

Sotomayor's style is consistent even when she finds against defendants, such as when she affirmed the conviction of a child pornography defendant in 2004. A U.S. district court judge had concluded after an evidentiary hearing that the man was innocent but denied his petition because it was filed too late.

Even though she had decided the core issue -- the conviction -- Sotomayor broke down the witnesses and testimony at the judge's hearing. She concluded that his finding of innocence was "clearly erroneous," even as she said that district courts "are generally best placed to evaluate testimony in light of the witnesses' demeanor."

A fellow Democratic appointee, Judge Rosemary S. Pooler, dissented. Sotomayor's opinion, she wrote, was based on "speculations and conjectures" and disregarded the judge's "role as the finder-of-facts."

"It is inappropriate in all but the most extraordinary cases for this Court to second-guess a district court's credibility findings," Pooler concluded. "The majority's dissection of the district court's decision departs from our precedents and wrongly supplants the lower court's assessment of the evidence with its own factual inferences, never having seen or heard any of the testimony that it now seeks to discredit."

[conf512]

We do not need a racist woman as a supreme court justice!

[billmatt]

Judge Sotomayor will be a great Supreme Court Justice, as discussed at

http://murder-homicide.blogspot.com/

[beaumuff]

Sotomayer is not a good chice, but then again look at all the tax crooks Obama choose for his administration. We still have worthless Geithner or better known as Turbo Timmmy, but the others had the sense to resign after they got caught. Just another good example of bad judgement again.

[DaVicar5]

Again, just another attempt by Obama to up-move liberal whack-jobs to his level - What a terrible nomination, for the Obamanation!!!

[gravyboat4000]

"liberal whack jobs"

lmao

You guys NEVER say anything of substance, just spewing whatever Rush tells ya.

Vic, how is she a ,"liberal whack job"?

Come on, let's stop with the comedy one-liners, and talk about the issues.

[gunownerdan]

Sotomayor is just what we should expect from Obama - an activist judge with no respect for our basic constitutional right to keep and bear arms!

[pubsnomore]

If you replaced Bush with Obama's name, I'd agree with you.

[gunownerdan]

fred,
Sotomayor thinks civilians do not have a right to own guns, a belief she shares with Adolf Hitler and every communist dictator in history.

[goffredo29]

Men should not handle or take Boniva.

[summarex]

Not that I agree with too much of here politics but are they bothered by the fact that she doesn't take the findings of lower judges and juries as fact? Isn't that what apellate judges are there to NOT do? Or are theyt supposed to be rubber stamps like everything else in this country?

[saturn05]

Oh, so she is too good at her job so we must look for trouble where??? As we know from our current Supreme Court justices(majority Conservative), they should be investigated now for the way they and make their decisions. Labeling things conservative or liberal is too easy. I am a staunch liberal, but I would lean towards backing the prosecutor or the defendant. What would that do to the guys system of rating the justice?

[mrleme]

actornaught you forgot about the hispanic firefighter(s) that were included in the lawsuit. By the way, if you passed a difficult test wouldn't you want to "get the prize?" This reverse discrimination has been going on oh for about 30 years per a L.A. fire chief I know.

[actornaught]

The town felt it had a right to throw out the test results, and the appellate court was compelled to apply the law as it was written. Supreme court has different priorities from the appellates, and could make the decision it did. Standard stuff.

[pubsnomore]

Sotomayor is not a good choice for this position. She has been overall a bad judge for CT, and she will prove to be a menace in the SCOTUS. She is more radical than the judge she is replacing, and I don't believe in placing radicals on the SCOTUS.

Try again President Obama.

[pubsnomore]

I've been in favor of that just because they're Repiglickkker scum...

[mattlash3]

The problem with Sotomayor is she makes rulings based on her feelings and beliefs rather than by word of law. She is a loose cannon that will explode if confirmed to the surpreme Court. Just another nail in America's coffin. King Obama and his Czars will take care of all the business of government, Sotomayor will lead the cause in the High Court. The Regime is falling into place.

[actornaught]

You know your source of "information" is just a money making scam...

[Snowhare]

Uhm, where exactly did you hear that?
Are you still talking about the "empathy" thing?
Get a grip! Empathy is with all sides. Empathy means to know the results a judgement has for a person. This does help you make a decision which is just right: punishment in measure, justice of all sorts in measure. And not a decision where the one who ought to win will suffer in the end!