Meg Greene - Sonia Sotomayor: A Biography

MEG GREENE is a historian and writer. She is the author of volumes on Henry Louis Gates Jr., Billie Holiday, Jane Goodall, Mother Teresa, and Pope John Paul II in the Greenwood Biographies series, as well as numerous other works, many of them about American history. Ms. Greene makes her home in North Carolina.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR
A Biography

Meg Greene

Copyright 2012 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Greene, Meg.

Sonia Sotomayor : a biography / Meg Greene.

p. cm. (Greenwood biographies)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-313-39841-4 (hardcopy : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-313-39842-1 (ebook) 1. Sotomayor, Sonia, 1954 2. JudgesUnited StatesBiography. 3. Hispanic American judgesBiography. I. Title.

KF8745.S67G74 2012

347.732634dc23 [B] 2011053373

ISBN: 978-0-313-39841-4

EISBN: 978-0-313-39842-1

16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.

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In October 2009, if one were to knock at the door leading to the conference chambers of the Supreme Court, according to tradition, the door would be opened by the courts newest member, Sonia Sotomayor. This particular Supreme Court justice is more well known for her salsa dancing, karaoke singing, and affinity for the New York Yankees baseball team. She is a life-long resident of the Bronx in New York City. Sotomayor appears to be following the lead of her predecessor Ruth Bader Ginsburg and has been seen wearing a white lace collar under her stern black judges robe. What most people do not realize is that this justice, the third woman and the first Hispanic ever to ascend to the highest bench in the land, also brings more federal judicial experience to the court than any other Supreme Court justice of the last century.

Sonia Sotomayor has been painted as a left-leaning judge who, if one believes the conservative elements in the nation, will push the Supreme Court further to the left than the court has seen in decades. Other political pundits and legal analysts have deemed Sotomayor as being more centrist and that instead of embracing a strong political agenda, she will rule on cases much as she has since she first became a judge: according to the law. She will also demand of the lawyers nothing less than the most polished arguments that they can present, just as she did as a young prosecutor.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 2009, at the Supreme Court in Washington.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Even though Sotomayor may be the courts newest member, she conducts herself as if she has been on that bench for a lot longer. In her first appearance on the Supreme Courts opening day, Sotomayor took an active role in hearing oral arguments. She asked as many questions and made as many comments as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. As the Washington Post reported, the only clue that Sotomayor was the new judge on the block was that she forgot to turn her microphone on before asking questions. This is in sharp contrast to other justices like David H. Souter, who spoke little during his first year on the bench, or Justice Clarence Thomas, who has not asked any questions during the last three years.

Sotomayors presence as one of two women on the court is important too. Both current Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and retired Justice Sandra Day OConnor have stated how important it is to have more than one woman on the Supreme Court bench. Not only does it give the American public a better view of the court, it makes it more difficult for the male justices to ignore the womans point of view when discussing courtroom cases, when there are more women in the room.

Sotomayors presence has also brought up comparisons to Thurgood Marshall, who sat on the court from 1967 to 1991. Marshall, the courts first African American justice, exerted a profound influence over the court, and was known for not only sharing his legal expertise but his life experiences as an African American man growing up in the shadow of racial prejudice. If anything, Marshall pushed the Supreme Court not only to respond to the most persuasive legal arguments of the court but also to a moral compass. Both of these qualities have also been applied to Sotomayor as well.