Sotomayor Given the American Bar Association's Highest Rating for "Professional Qualification" »
Posted By ybdogsct 4 months ago in Political NewsSupreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has been given the American Bar Association's highest rating for "professional qualification," a political boost less than a week before her confirmation hearings begin in the Senate.
An ABA committee that reviewed her record concluded unanimously Tuesday that she is "well qualified" to sit on the high court. The nation's largest association of attorneys has been evaluating nominees to the federal bench for five decades.
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Tangent0014 months ago
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"You think Obama would have been stupid enough to pick someone that the ABA would consider "not qualified"?"
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Bush Sr. did. Clarence Thomas was simply 'qualified'. Reagan nominee Bork had twice as many 'not qualified' votes as Thomas.
It's unknown if Bush Jr. was 'stupid enough', since Miers' nomination was withdrawn before the ABA gave an assessment.
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Wolfie20074 months ago
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Looks to me like somebody needs to rate and review the members of the ABA who approved this rating for Sotomayor. Now let me see, how many times have her decisions been overturned? Is it 60 or 70% now? The doesn't say much for the ABA or Obama for that matter.
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ybdogsct4 months ago
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WOLFIE:
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"Now let me see, how many times have her decisions been overturned? Is it 60 or 70% now?"
Actually, Sotomayor has not been overturned 60% or 70% of the time, as you oversimplistically put it. This erroneous figure can be attributed to a Washington Times and New Republic article, which calculated this erroneous "Reversal Rate" by noting that SCOTUS had reviewed 5 of Sotomayor's judicial opinions and had overturned 3 of them.
The truth, however, is that Sotomayor has authored far more than 5 legal opinions in her 18 years as a judge.
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/judge-sotomayors-appe...
"Since joining the Second Circuit in 1998, Sotomayor has authored over 150 opinions, addressing a wide range of issues, in civil cases. To date, two of these decisions have been overturned by the Supreme Court; a third is under review and likely to be reversed. In those two cases (and likely the third), Sotomayor’s opinion was rejected by the Supreme Court’s more conservative majority and adopted by its more liberal dissenters (including Justice Souter).
Even if we do not count the opinions she has authored in criminal, rather than civil cases and even if we do not count the minor opinions along with the 150 major opinions, that means the Supreme Court's reversal rate of Sotomayor's opinions is NOT 60%, but at most 2% -- 3 cases out of 150 ."
You are using a statistically misleading sampling size. If you had even a rudimentary background in statistics, you would have observed just how absurd your purported "60%" figure actually is.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/washington-...
"There are two fairly obvious problems with this. Firstly, only five of Sotomayor's opinions have been ruled upon by the Supreme Court. That's hardly enough to reach a statistically sound conclusion. Moreover, as a matter of semantics, most people don't begin quoting percentages until the number of instances is significantly higher than five.
But secondly, a 60% reversal rate is ACTUALLY BELOW AVERAGE based on the Washington Times' criteria. According to MediaMatters.org, the Supreme Court typically reverses about 75% of circuit court decisions that it chooses to rule upon.
The reason that the reversal rate is so high, of course, is that the Supreme Court has a lot of discretion about which cases it chooses to review and rule upon, and is generally not going to be inclined to overturn law dictated by a lower court unless the legal reasoning has a strong chance of reversal."
http://washingtonindependent.com/42300/the-attack-...
The Almanac of the Federal Judiciary , widely relied on by lawyers and potential clerks for its reviews of federal judges, quotes lawyers calling Sotomayor “bright," “very smart,” and “frighteningly smart .”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/05/...
"I had some personal experiences with her. I had at least two, possibly three, cases in which she was the judge -- including a Second Circuit appeal for which she wrote the opinion.
Based on those experiences, I'm genuinely amazed at how -- overnight -- she's been transformed into a stupid, shrill, out-of-her-depth Puerto Rican woman who is being considered for the Supreme Court solely due to anti-merit, affirmative action reasons.
My perception of Sotomayor is almost the exact opposite of the picture painted by Rosen. I found her to be extremely perceptive, smart, shrewd and intellectually insightful. Of the countless federal judges with whom I had substantive interaction over more than ten years of litigation, I would place her in the top tier when it comes to intellect ."
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/05...
"I have known the Judge for thirteen years. After my first year in law school, I was an intern in her chambers when she was a District Court judge. A few years after that, I was a clerk on the Second Circuit, where my judge sat with Judge Sotomayor on many panels and I observed oral arguments in which she was involved. And since then I have visited and spoken with her frequently on a range of issues. Thus, I feel like I have a special authority to talk about her qualifications.
The bottom line is that I have always been enormously impressed by her intellect, which is why I’ve always been eager to seek out her views on matters of professional concern ."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks...
"Walking in the door Sotomayor would bring more experience on the bench, and more varied experience on the bench, than anyone currently serving on the United States Supreme Court had when they were appointed."
http://ncronline.org/news/people/judge-sotomayors-...
In terms of legal training, the opposition will find it difficult to find any omission in preparation -- the prosecution of dozens of criminal cases as an assistant DA in Manhattan; a partner in a major New York firm dealing with highly detailed and complex intellectual property and commercial litigation; a trial judge for six years showing a meticulous attention – and yes empathy – for the factual record as it affects real human lives, and an appellate judge for 11 years where she participated in over 3000 decisions and authored roughly 400.
It's laughable that after impeccable academic credentials and 18 years of experience on the bench, you still don't believe Sotomayor is qualified; and yet I didn't hear a peep from you when GW Bush appointed John Roberts to be CHIEF JUSTICE with a measly 2 years experience as a judge.
Is it because John Roberts happens to be a white, conservative male, while Sonia Sotomayor happens to be an Hispanic female?
When is your next Klan meeting scheduled, WOLFIE? -
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roosieComment removed: Hard Banned27 Replies
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