Legal News

Guest Perspective: Sotomayor Stumped Only Once

By Jennifer Forsyth

Editor’s Note: The consensus among Sotomayor hearing watchers is that the judge’s march to the Supreme Court continued unabated. Republicans indicated they would not attempt to filibuster a vote on her confirmation, which is expected in August.

The last in our series of reviews on Sotomayor’s performance comes from Andy Pincus, a partner in Mayer Brown’s Supreme Court practice, who has argued 19 cases before the high court.

Judge Sotomayor was a very effective witness. She seemed a bit nervous at the beginning of her testimony, but clearly gained confidence – joking with Senators a bit, and explaining she was inspired to become a prosecutor after watching the late 50s era television drama, "Perry Mason." (Who knew there were so many Perry Mason fans still around?) As time went on, she let more of her personality show in her answers.

We learned that she is cautious and careful, putting past comments in context and speaking with precision; just what we would expect from her detailed judicial opinions.

The nominee's goals were to show command of legal doctrine, respond to issues raised prior to the hearing and not to make any mistakes. Two topics of particular importance were her decision in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano, which involved allegations of reverse discrimination against white and Hispanic firefighters, and her Second Amendment ruling addressing the applicability to the states of the constitutional right to bear arms.

She accomplished those goals. There can be no doubt about her knowledge of the law: the only question that stumped her temporarily was about a right to self-defense, hardly a staple of the federal court diet. While the sufficiency of her responses to the key issues will no doubt be debated, she was credible and thorough. Most importantly for the congressional hearing context, she didn't make a mistake.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 17, 2009 (boomark / email).