Sotomayor Shows Precision in Areas of Civil Rights and Constitutional Protections

Today, Alliance for Justice released the last in a series of in-depth reports examining the record of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. During a press briefing on the report, Vanderbilt Associate Law Professor and Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary member Terry Maroney summed up Sotomayor’s style by stating, “What comes through loud and clear is that she takes a scalpel approach rather than a hammer approach resulting in absolute precision.” Speaking about the recently decided Ricci case, AFJ Legal Director Bill Yeomans clarified that “the Supreme Court decision in Ricci created a new standard that Sotomayor could not have applied previously as a circuit court judge.”

Over the last month, AFJ has released a new report each week, providing thorough analysis of key areas of Judge Sotomayor’s record. You can read all of the reports on our Supreme Court Watch page. This final report focuses on civil rights and constitutional protections, finding that similar to the rest of her record Sotomayor is “a model of judicial restraint, acutely and openly conscious of the limits imposed by her role as a judge.”