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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Courts - Judge Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination

Several items of interest today:

Gerard N. Magliocca, a law professor at Indiana University at Indianapolis, has a column today in the New York Times, on the page where Maureen Dowd and Thomas L. Friedman usually appear -- they are off today, the paper notes.

Magliocca at one time served as an intern to the Judge, and later "was a law clerk to Judge Guido Calabresi on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and observed Judge Sotomayor after her elevation to that court." He concludes:

For those of us who think that intellectual rigor and fairness are the crucial factors, no matter which party the president hails from, there is no question that Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed.
CNNPolitics.com has a story headed "Sotomayor would be part of court's Catholic shift." Some quotes:
As Supreme Court hopeful Sonia Sotomayor breaks ground for Hispanics, she is poised to add an exclamation point to another historic demographic shift: the move to a Catholic court.

Sotomayor was raised Catholic and if she is confirmed, six out of nine, or two-thirds of the justices on the court will be from the faith. Catholics make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population.

"It's most unusual," said Barbara Perry, a government professor at Sweetbriar College who was already writing a book about Catholics on the Supreme Court when Sotomayor was named as the next nominee.

"Presidents used to reserve a Catholic seat and a Jewish seat on the Supreme Court," Perry told CNN Radio. "Now we've moved from a Catholic seat on the court to a Catholic court."

Of the 110 people who have served on the Supreme Court, 11 have been Catholic. Five of those justices -- Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts -- are currently on the court.

"It is more than a random selection process that yielded the current five Catholics on the bench," Perry said.

The five current Catholic justices were appointed by Republican presidents, which Perry notes may be a key reason why so many Catholics have joined the high court in recent years.

"It's their tie to conservative Catholicism which made them agreeable to (Republican) presidents' ideology," she said. * * *

In 1987, a lone Catholic justice, William J. Brennan, Jr., sat on the court. A generation later, that number is poised to become six.

"What that tells is that in our politics, religion doesn't matter anymore," Perry said. Then she added: "I don't think our politics are ready for an Islamic justice at this point."

The current court is composed of two Jewish members -- Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If Sotomayor joins the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens would be the solitary Protestant on a court once dominated by white Protestant men.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 27, 2009 09:08 AM
Posted to Courts in general