Melissa (on the right) looks on as police officers take away a protestor who interrupted the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 13, 2009. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (UNITED STATES POLITICS CRIME LAW) http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Sonia-Sotomayor-George-Bridges-Senate-Judiciary-Committee/photo//090713/480/ad68a880104a4ef38e4961c265e34fc8//s:/ap/20090713/ap_on_go_su_co/us_sotomayor_senate#photoViewer=/090713/ids_photos_wl/r2689158169.jpgI was rather amazed to be able to attend such an historic event as a member of the public and to watch the hearing process in person. The room was smaller than I expected, but the Senators, seated high above Sotomayor, were more impressive than I imagined. Members of the press corps and administrators filled the room with computers, cameras, and notebooks.
In the short time we were in the hearing room, each senator outlined what they believed were essential qualities for Supreme Court nominees. All Senators spoke to the importance of the procedures and the task that lay ahead. Both the Democrats and Republicans praised Sotomayor and her career, although the Democrats seemed to speak with more confidence in her eventual nomination. Sotomayor only uttered a few words of thanks as her opening statement is scheduled for this afternoon.
Excerpts from the opening statements:
Senator Feinstein
(http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=752fa206-5056-8059-760b-22477bbfda58)
I want to start out with a couple of personal words. Your nomination I view with a great sense of personal pride. You are indeed a very special woman. You have overcome adversity and disadvantages. You have grown in strength and determination and you have achieved respect and admiration for what has been a brilliant legal and judicial career. If confirmed, you will join the Supreme Court with more federal judicial experience than any Justice in the past 100 years. And you bring with you 29 and a half years of varied legal experience to the court. By this standard you are well-qualified.
You have 11 years as a federal appellate court judge. You have participated in 3,000 appeals, authored roughly 400 published opinions. In your six years on the federal court you were the trial judge in approximately 450 cases. For four and a half years, you prosecuted crimes as an assistant district attorney in New York City. You spent eight years litigating business cases at a New York law firm.
What is unique about this broad experience is that you have seen the law truly from all sides.
In my 16 and a half years on this committee, I have held that there are certain qualities that a Supreme Court nominee must possess:
· First, broad and relative experience – you satisfy that.
· Second, strong and deep knowledge of the law and the Constitution – you satisfy that.
· Third, a firm commitment to follow the law – and you have, and all of the statistics indicate that.
· Next, a judicial temperament and integrity – and you have both of those.
· Finally, mainstream legal reasoning. And there is everything in your record to indicate that.
Bottom line: I believe your record indicates that you possess all of these qualities.
Judge Sotomayor, I believe you are a warm and intelligent woman. I believe that you are well-studied and experienced in the law, with some 17 years of federal court experience involving 3,000 appeals and 450 trial cases.
So I believe you too will bring your experiences and philosophies to this highest court and I believe that will do only one thing – and that is to strengthen this high institution of our great country.
Senator Hatch
(http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=74a9c22e-1b78-be3e-e0d6-90c7c973f190)
Judge Sotomayor comes to this committee for the third time, having served on the first two levels of the federal judiciary, and now, being nominated to the third. She has a compelling life story and a strong record of educational and professional achievement. Her nomination speaks to the opportunities that America today provides for men and women of different backgrounds and heritage. The liberty we enjoy here in America makes those opportunities possible and requires our best efforts to protect that liberty. Our liberty rests on the foundation of a written Constitution that limits and separates government power, self-government by the people, and the rule of law. Those principles define the kind of judge our liberty requires, they define the role judges may play in our system of government. ... there must be a vigorous debate about the kind of judge America needs because nothing less than our liberty is at stake. Must judges set aside, or may judges consider, their personal feelings in deciding cases? Is judicial impartiality a duty or an option? Does the fact that judicial decisions affect so many people’s lives require judges to be objective and impartial, or does it allow them to be subjective and sympathetic? Judge Sotomayor’s nomination raises these and other important issues and I look forward to a respectful and energetic debate. The confirmation process in general, and this hearing in particular, must be both dignified and thorough. There are very different and strongly held views about the issues we will explore, in particular, the role that judges should play in our system of government. The task before us is to determine whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor is qualified, by legal experience and especially by judicial philosophy, to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. Doing so requires examining her entire record, her speeches and articles as well as her judicial decisions. We must at the same time be thankful for the opportunity represented by Judge Sotomayor’s nomination and focus squarely on whether she will be the kind of judge required by the very liberty that makes that opportunity possible.
Senator Kohl
(http://kohl.senate.gov/newsroom/pressrelease.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1464=2937)
Your nomination is a reflection of who we are as a country and it represents an American success story that we can all be proud of.Your academic and professional accomplishments - as prosecutor, private practitioner, trial judge and appellate judge - are exemplary.And as a judge, you have brought a richness of experience to the bench and to the judiciary which has been an inspiration for so many.Today, we begin a process through which the Senate engages in its Constitutional role to “advise and consent” on your nomination.This week’s hearing is the only opportunity we, and the American people, will have to learn about your judicial philosophy, your temperament, and your motivations before you put on the black robe and are heard from only in your judicial opinions.The President has asked us to entrust you with an immense amount of power.Power which, by design, is free from political constraints, unchecked by the people, and unaccountable to Congress, except in the most extreme circumstances.Our democracy, our rights, and everything we hold dear about America are built on the foundation of our Constitution.For more than 200 years, the Court has interpreted the meaning of the Constitution and in doing so guaranteed our most cherished rights.The right to equal education regardless of race.The right to an attorney and a fair trial for the accused.The right to personal privacy.The right to speak, vote and worship without interference from the government.Should you be confirmed, you and your colleagues will decide the future scope of our rights and the breadth of our freedoms.Your decisions will shape the fabric of American society for years to come.That is why it is so important that over the course of the next few days, we gain a good understanding of what is in your heart and your mind.We don’t have a right to know in advance how you will rule on cases which will come before you.But we need – and we deserve – to know what you think about fundamental issues such as civil rights, privacy, property rights, the separation of church and state, and civil liberties, to name a few.
When considering Supreme Court nominees over the years, I have judged each one with a test of judicial excellence.
First, judicial excellence means the competence, character, and temperament that we expect of a Supreme Court Justice.He or she must have a keen understanding of the law, and the ability to explain it in ways that both the litigants and the American people will understand and respect, even if they disagree with the outcome.
Second, I look for a nominee to have the sense of values which form the core of our political and economic system.No one, including the President, has the right to require ideological purity from a member of the Supreme Court.But we do have a right to require that the nominee accept both the basic principles of the Constitution and its core values implanted in society.
Third, we want a nominee with a sense of compassion.This is a quality that I have considered with the last 6 Supreme Court Justices.Compassion does not mean bias or lack of impartiality.It is meant to remind us that the law is more than an intellectual game, and more than a mental exercise.
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