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Gender and heritage, frequent topics for Supreme Court nominee
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-05 14:10 The financial documents paint a portrait of a New Yorker in an expensive neighborhood who has to watch her budget. She has $1.16 million in assets, but $418,350 in debts, including her mortgage, credit card bills and a big dental bill. She listed her bank balance as $31,985. Previous financial disclosure reports put her annual income at about $200,000. In listing her most significant cases as a trial lawyer, Sotomayor highlighted the successful prosecution of two men on child pornography charges in 1983. She said the case was the first child porn prosecution in New York after the Supreme Court upheld state law in 1982.
Describing her five years as a prosecutor, Sotomayor put importance on her case against a man dubbed the Tarzan Murderer because of his habit of climbing and leaping between buildings. He was convicted and sentenced to a minimum of 62 1/2 years in prison.
The Supreme Court directly reversed five appellate rulings Sotomayor wrote or participated in as a judge on the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals. One was a case in which the high court said Sotomayor was wrong in concluding that the Clean Water Act doesn't allow cost to be considered when deciding what technology would best minimize environmental impacts. The documents provide an insight on how Sotomayor might approach deliberations on a nine-member Supreme Court that decides many cases by a 5-4 vote. In a 2000 speech, she talked about what it's like to serve on a three-judge appellate court panel and fail to convince fellow judges of her views. "In such cases, one can feel powerless and wonder why the others were not persuaded by what one took to be so salient in the case," she said. "There is, on the other hand, a singularly satisfying feeling that one gets when one has arrived at a particularly penetrating analysis and is able to convince both of one's colleagues of its merit." The speeches also reveal she has spoken highly of Justice Antonin Scalia, whom she introduced during a September 2001 event at Hofstra Law School as a powerful thinker who has spoken about the role of federal judges in "illuminating ways." "I understand Justice Scalia's jurisprudence to begin with a proposition that we should all agree to -- namely, that judges should try to interpret the law correctly, and without personal or political bias," Sotomayor said.
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