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Sotomayor and Criminal Justice

Friday, July 17th, 2009

My crime column on Monday will look at just how little criminal justice factored into the Sotomayor hearings.

For today, criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield has a really terrific post about the unsettling prospect of Sotomayor as the Supreme Court’s “voice of experience” on criminal justice issues.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 9:01 am by Radley Balko and is filed under General Criminal Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “Sotomayor and Criminal Justice”

  1. #1 |  Andrew Williams |  July 17th, 2009 at 9:37 am

    We all know she’s going to get the nod, unless someone coughs up incontrovertible evidence that she’s a “sex prevert.” We need to prepare for the aftermath of her appointment.

  2. #2 |  Cynical in CA |  July 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am

    “Could Obama find no qualified candidate who embraces the Constitution?” — Scott Greenfield

    As the Constitution is not self-interpreting, alas, it means exactly what the ruling class says it means, Mr. Greenfield’s eloquent pleas notwithstanding.

    To clarify Greenfield’s statement, “Could Obama find no qualified candidate who embraces what I (and those who share my opinion) believe the Constitution should mean?”

    Well, yes, of course Obama could, if he and his puppet masters agreed with you.

    Fat chance.

  3. #3 |  Cynical in CA |  July 17th, 2009 at 10:25 am

    On the same topic, Sheldon Richman’s latest article:

    http://fee.org/articles/tgif/sotomayor/?utm_source=In+brief&utm_campaign=6bd24d7259-In_brief_7-09-2009&utm_medium=email

  4. #4 |  Jim Collins |  July 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am

    She’s a Democrat, sex pervert won’t cut it. Just add to her qualifications, you know “experiences” and all of that.

  5. #5 |  ktc2 |  July 17th, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    One of those things the Rs and Ds both agree on, once accused by officer porky you are guilty and have no rights. The guy she’s replacing certainly had major faults but he was much better than her on this issue.

    Rs win, Ds win, we the people? screwed again.

  6. #6 |  Boyd Durkin |  July 17th, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    There is no law here, there is no freedom. There is only the state and it defines every word and every subject to suit its growth. Sotomayor is yet-another boring detail in the plan.

  7. #7 |  supercat |  July 17th, 2009 at 6:47 pm

    //As the Constitution is not self-interpreting, alas, it means exactly what the ruling class says it means, Mr. Greenfield’s eloquent pleas notwithstanding.//

    It may not be entirely self-interpreting, but it’s a lot clearer than many judges or law-school professors want to give it credit for. Unfortunately, Constitutional Studies doesn’t mean studying the Constitution to see what it says, but rather inventing new ways to pretend the Constitution doesn’t really mean what it says.

    Many people seem to regard judicial precedent as being a body of law which is coequal with the Constitution. Such a view is fundamentally illegitimate. Nothing in the Constitution gives the Supreme Court, or any court for that matter, any authority over anyone other than actual parties to the cases it hears. While precedent can and should be used in cases where the Constitution and laws would otherwise be ambiguous, it should only be used to select among those possible outcomes which could be justified in its absence. Reference to precedent should be the last resort of a judge making a decision, not the first.

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