No Sotomayor Threads? Guess I'll start.

#26
#26
Over the course of almost 17 years on the federal bench, Sotomayor has written opinions on at least eight cases that the Supreme Court later reviewed on appeal, according to a CNN analysis of Sotomayor's cases. Of those 8 cases, 5 were overturned, 1 was sent back to the lower court for further consideration, 1 case was upheld but Sotomayor's legal reasoning was unanimously faulted, and 1 case is pending.


* Ricci v. DeStefano 530 F.3d 87 (2008) – SCOTUS decision pending as of 5/26/2009
* Riverkeeper, Inc. vs. EPA, 475 F.3d 83 (2007) – Reversed 6-3 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg)
* Knight vs. Commissioner, 467 F.3d 149 (2006) – Upheld, but reasoning was unanimously faulted
* Dabit vs. Merrill Lynch, 395 F.3d 25 (2005) – Reversed 8-0
* Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. vs. McVeigh, 396 F.3d 136 (2005) – Reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Breyer, Kennedy, Souter, Alito)
* Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp., 299 F.3d 374 (2000) – Reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer)
* Tasini vs. New York Times, et al, 972 F. Supp. 804 (1997) – Reversed 7-2 (Dissenting: Stevens, Breyer)
* The European Community vs. RJR Nabisco, 355 F.3d 123 (2004) – Judgment vacated and sent back to appeals court

I know there are other factors besides simply looking at the results of the cases, but the simple statistics are at least worrisome.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Past Sotomayor rulings faced tough crowd on high court - Blogs from CNN.com
 
#27
#27
vols4sure said:
Over the course of almost 17 years on the federal bench, Sotomayor has written opinions on at least eight cases that the Supreme Court later reviewed on appeal, according to a CNN analysis of Sotomayor's cases. Of those 8 cases, 5 were overturned, 1 was sent back to the lower court for further consideration, 1 case was upheld but Sotomayor's legal reasoning was unanimously faulted, and 1 case is pending.


* Ricci v. DeStefano 530 F.3d 87 (2008) – SCOTUS decision pending as of 5/26/2009
* Riverkeeper, Inc. vs. EPA, 475 F.3d 83 (2007) – Reversed 6-3 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg)
* Knight vs. Commissioner, 467 F.3d 149 (2006) – Upheld, but reasoning was unanimously faulted
* Dabit vs. Merrill Lynch, 395 F.3d 25 (2005) – Reversed 8-0
* Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. vs. McVeigh, 396 F.3d 136 (2005) – Reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Breyer, Kennedy, Souter, Alito)
* Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp., 299 F.3d 374 (2000) – Reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer)
* Tasini vs. New York Times, et al, 972 F. Supp. 804 (1997) – Reversed 7-2 (Dissenting: Stevens, Breyer)
* The European Community vs. RJR Nabisco, 355 F.3d 123 (2004) – Judgment vacated and sent back to appeals court

I know there are other factors besides simply looking at the results of the cases, but the simple statistics are at least worrisome.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Past Sotomayor rulings faced tough crowd on high court - Blogs from CNN.com
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I'd want to look each one over to see what I thought of the reasoning, but let me tell you as a an attorney why it is that the statistic of reversals by the US Supreme Court is completely pointless.

The Supreme Court only takes a tiny, tiny percentage of the cases that are appealed to it. And by and large, they only take them when they are likely to go in a different direction from the lower court.

The stat you cite is of the cases the Supreme Court elected to hear. In 17 years,I guarantee that she had many, many more of her decisions appealed than 8. And the Supreme Court only took 8 of those for review, meaning that they elected not to hear so many others.

It is a VERY misleading stat to say they took 8 of her opinions and reversed,, in some form, 6 of them. If she was on the circuit court for 11 years, I'd guesstimate that means they basically affirmed her decisions (by not taking cases) probably in hundreds if not thousands of cases.
 
#28
#28
lawgator1 said:
I'd want to look each one over to see what I thought of the reasoning, but let me tell you as a an attorney why it is that the statistic of reversals by the US Supreme Court is completely pointless.

The Supreme Court only takes a tiny, tiny percentage of the cases that are appealed to it. And by and large, they only take them when they are likely to go in a different direction from the lower court.

The stat you cite is of the cases the Supreme Court elected to hear. In 17 years,I guarantee that she had many, many more of her decisions appealed than 8. And the Supreme Court only took 8 of those for review, meaning that they elected not to hear so many others.

It is a VERY misleading stat to say they took 8 of her opinions and reversed,, in some form, 6 of them. If she was on the circuit court for 11 years, I'd guesstimate that means they basically affirmed her decisions (by not taking cases) probably in hundreds if not thousands of cases.
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fair enough, but don't you think it's disturbing that she's had 6 cases reversed and 8 reviewed? by what you say it seems like they wouldn't take a case in general unless there was compelling evidence it might get overturned. edit: this seems to confirm the theory that at times she rules by what she thinks is right and not by the law and that is a disturbing characteristic to have in a supreme court judge.
 
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#29
#29
droski said:
fair enough, but don't you think it's disturbing that she's had 6 cases reversed and 8 reviewed? by what you say it seems like they wouldn't take a case in general unless there was compelling evidence it might get overturned.
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To play devil's advocate (zing!), perhaps that has as much to do with the controversial nature of the cases, as much as any ruling.
 
#30
#30
lawgator1 said:
I'd want to look each one over to see what I thought of the reasoning, but let me tell you as a an attorney why it is that the statistic of reversals by the US Supreme Court is completely pointless.

The Supreme Court only takes a tiny, tiny percentage of the cases that are appealed to it. And by and large, they only take them when they are likely to go in a different direction from the lower court.

The stat you cite is of the cases the Supreme Court elected to hear. In 17 years,I guarantee that she had many, many more of her decisions appealed than 8. And the Supreme Court only took 8 of those for review, meaning that they elected not to hear so many others.

It is a VERY misleading stat to say they took 8 of her opinions and reversed,, in some form, 6 of them. If she was on the circuit court for 11 years, I'd guesstimate that means they basically affirmed her decisions (by not taking cases) probably in hundreds if not thousands of cases.
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I agree completely with everything you just wrote. My point in bringing up the statistics was basically what you wrote in your first sentence (it needs further information, review, and discussion). The 5-4 votes probably are nothing but the unanimous or close to unanimous decisions overturning her opinions are a little disturbing.
 
#31
#31
IPorange said:
To play devil's advocate (zing!), perhaps that has as much to do with the controversial nature of the cases, as much as any ruling.
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if she is consistantly ruiling against state law in controversial cases (i.e. she rules by politics/personal views and not law) she would make a very poor supreme court justice.
 
#32
#32
droski said:
fair enough, but don't you think it's disturbing that she's had 6 cases reversed and 8 reviewed? by what you say it seems like they wouldn't take a case in general unless there was compelling evidence it might get overturned.
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I'm saying that the statistic of "8 reviewed" is way, way off. Its certainly hundreds of cases actually sent up to the Supreme Court and reviewed, with the vast majority simply not accepted for full briefing because no justice (or group of justics) saw need for action.

The last statistic I saw said that in 1994 only 3.9% of petitions for review were granted. My guess, knowing the trends, is that the precentage is even lower now.

In her over 11 year career on the circuit court bench, I assure you that she has had hundreds if not thousands of cases appealed up to the Supreme Court. And they only took 8.

Point is, implying she has a high reversal rate by going off the handful they took -- when by their nature those where they accepted review are going to have some sort of disagreement to them just because they took it in the first place -- means nothing.
 
#33
#33
vols4sure said:
I agree completely with everything you just wrote. My point in bringing up the statistics was basically what you wrote in your first sentence (it needs further information, review, and discussion). The 5-4 votes probably are nothing but the unanimous or close to unanimous decisions overturning her opinions are a little disturbing.
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And let me tell you why that might not be true. In certain cases, where the prior decisions of the Supreme Court point to a particular result, but it has been a couple of decades since it was last decided, you can frequently find situations where the Court has changed so much that the vote would be totally different.

I'm not saying that is what happened here -- again as you and I note you need to look at the particular case -- but I am saying that you cannot conclude from an 8-1, 7-2, or even 9-0 decision that she was necessarily way off in her reasoning.

In fact, in some extreme cases she might even be completely 100 percent correct based on Supreme Court precedent, only to have a newer and different Supreme Court membership decide to change the law.

This is very case-specific.
 
#34
#34
lawgator1 said:
And let me tell you why that might not be true. In certain cases, where the prior decisions of the Supreme Court point to a particular result, but it has been a couple of decades since it was last decided, you can frequently find situations where the Court has changed so much that the vote would be totally different.

I'm not saying that is what happened here -- again as you and I note you need to look at the particular case -- but I am saying that you cannot conclude from an 8-1, 7-2, or even 9-0 decision that she was necessarily way off in her reasoning.

In fact, in some extreme cases she might even be completely 100 percent correct based on Supreme Court precedent, only to have a newer and different Supreme Court membership decide to change the law.

This is very case-specific.
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I just learned something. I had never thought about that before. Thank you.
 
#35
#35
lawgator1 said:
And let me tell you why that might not be true. In certain cases, where the prior decisions of the Supreme Court point to a particular result, but it has been a couple of decades since it was last decided, you can frequently find situations where the Court has changed so much that the vote would be totally different.

I'm not saying that is what happened here -- again as you and I note you need to look at the particular case -- but I am saying that you cannot conclude from an 8-1, 7-2, or even 9-0 decision that she was necessarily way off in her reasoning.

In fact, in some extreme cases she might even be completely 100 percent correct based on Supreme Court precedent, only to have a newer and different Supreme Court membership decide to change the law.

This is very case-specific.
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but she's only been there for 11 years.
 
#36
#36
droski said:
but she's only been there for 11 years.
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But the precedent she was going with may have been from 20 or 30 years prior. Or at least that is what I am understanding.

And that is assuming she is GOING with previous precedents, which I don't know is the case on some of these decisions.
 
#40
#40
droski said:
bleh. i've been screwing up words like that too much recently.
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We all have that half dozen we just always get wrong.

I can get corrected a thousand times on "its" and "it's" and I'm still only sure I'm right about none of the time.
 
#41
#41
IPorange said:
I just learned something. I had never thought about that before. Thank you.
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I'm pleased to hear that.

Let me elaborate a little bit on what I was saying earlier about the number of cases reviewed as it might fill in the gaps a little bit.

The US Supreme Court accepts cases from two places -- the highest court of appeal in each state (usually a state supreme court), and the federal appeals courts, of which there are 11.

(If memory serves they can get them from some other means that is international or something, but it is extremely rare).

The lower courts are all bound by statute or rule to accept cases in only certain circumstances. They are courts of limited jurisdiction. For example, if you are in the middle of litigating a divorce case and you don't like some ruling you get prior to final judgment, ordinarily you cannot appeal until the case is completely over.

The Supreme Court's jurisdiction is fairly limitless once a case is concldued at the state supreme court or the federal appellate court. If you lose in one of those courts, you file a petition for writ of certiorari, which is a request to the Supreme Court to invoke their jurisdiction. Only they decided if they are going to hear a case or not.

As I noted earlier, they rarely accept cases. Certainly less than 5 % of all of the petitions for cert are granted. In the event they do not accept cert, then the ruling of the lower court is sustained, for lack of a better word.

And even in those cases they accept, they sometimes will issue a terse "We accepted cert based on confict with our recent decision in blah versus blah and instruct the appellate court to reconsider based on that."

What sometimes happens is that over a few years the Supreme Court will see a number of cases all raising the same issue. For example, if Congress passes a new sentencing guideline statute, and there is some sort of glitch, a couple of years later cases appealing decisions based on the glitch may start showing up with some frequency. The Court might grant cert in a dozen of them, but then take one or two to illustrate the issue and write an opinion based on those, reversing the rest to be reconsidered in light of their instruction.

My point in all of that was that statistics on rate of review and reversal are really easily misconstrued. I'd be more curious about the individual ones where the Court strongly disagreed with her and I'd always be mindful that for every one of thoese there are surely dozens where the Court just affirmed her decision with no comment by not accpeting jurisdiction in the first place.
 
#42
#42
Clearly they were overturned because the Supreme Court:

1. Has white males on it and
2. Is not nearly empathetic enough...:)
 
#43
#43
lawgator1 said:
As I noted earlier, they rarely accept cases. Certainly less than 5 % of all of the petitions for cert are granted. In the event they do not accept cert, then the ruling of the lower court is sustained, for lack of a better word.

...

My point in all of that was that statistics on rate of review and reversal are really easily misconstrued. I'd be more curious about the individual ones where the Court strongly disagreed with her and I'd always be mindful that for every one of thoese there are surely dozens where the Court just affirmed her decision with no comment by not accpeting jurisdiction in the first place.
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While I know that your post was very general in nature, your statements that by denying cert the Court is affirming the lower courts decision is misleading. The large majority of cases the Court decides to hear is completely discretionary. A cert decision (accept or deny) says nothing or very little in particular about the merits, correctness of the case, or precedential value. All it means is that the Court for any number of reasons decided not to hear the case. While it may be because the correct decision was reached, it could also be that it was not important enough to spend their time on, they want to release an opinion on the issue under a case with what they feel are a better set of facts, they deny cert for political reasons, etc.

Like you said, there are thousands of petitions for cert received by the Court each year. By sheer numbers, it is impossible to hear every case in which they would likely disagree with the decision reached.
 
#44
#44
vols4sure said:
While I know that your post was very general in nature, your statements that by denying cert the Court is affirming the lower courts decision is misleading. The large majority of cases the Court decides to hear is completely discretionary. A cert decision (accept or deny) says nothing or very little in particular about the merits, correctness of the case, or precedential value. All it means is that the Court for any number of reasons decided not to hear the case. While it may be because the correct decision was reached, it could also be that it was not important enough to spend their time on, they want to release an opinion on the issue under a case with what they feel are a better set of facts, they deny cert for political reasons, etc.

Like you said, there are thousands of petitions for cert received by the Court each year. By sheer numbers, it is impossible to hear every case in which they would likely disagree with the decision reached.
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Of course you are correct. Did not mean to suggest that denying a petition for cert necessarily means endorsing the result or the rationale.
 
#45
#45
lawgator1 said:
I don't know enough about her to have a point of view.
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But 3 minutes later...

lawgator1 said:
Republicans were ready for this. Best course of action for the Dems, if you ask me, is to let RL, Hannity, and the rest of them just talk themselves out about her for the next two weeks. Don't even respond. Just reiterate her experience and she's qualified and good integrity and it will fade.
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You don't know anything about her, but you want the party leaders to pump up her experience, qualifications and integrity... of which, you have no idea if she has any of the three? :blink:
 
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#46
#46
volinbham said:
Clearly they were overturned because the Supreme Court:

1. Has white males on it and
2. Is not nearly empathetic enough...:)
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had the court had a few Albanians, female Sarajevo orphans and some Waziristani burqa sporting chicks, then the court would have rendered THE correct decisions the first time, every time.
 
#47
#47
Rasputin_Vol said:
But 3 minutes later...



You don't know anything about her, but you want the party leaders to pump up her experience, qualifications and integrity... of which, you have no idea if she has any of the three? :blink:
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No, no. I have no idea how I will feel about her after the hearings and having some time maybe in the next couple fo weeks to read some of her opinions on our research database. Seriously, I don't.

I'm just saying that she's reasonably well educated and apparently even the Repubs are admitting they don't have any scandal material on her so its going to be a question of temperament and philosophy.

I'm just saying, politically, the best strategy for the White House is to let the conservative commentators run on abouit it for awhile with no response other than to drone on about the mundane. Especially given the increasing disrespect for the right wing commentators as nay-sayers and obstructionist.
 
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