Politico on Sotomayor's Questions to Lawyers During Appellate Arguments:
The story is here, and it links to audio of the arguments.
Politico on Sotomayor's Questions to Lawyers During Appellate Arguments:
The story is here, and it links to audio of the arguments. |
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Just to throw some gasoline on the flames of SoSo as racialist, check out the 1min-13sec clip of Ricci at that site, where she cuts off the lawyer and says something like "WE are not suggesting... er I mean... THE CITY is not suggesting....."
Are you arguing the city's case, judge? ;-)
Still, I can see 2 minutes in any court action sounding like this, and as long as everybody gets their work done, and isn't a wussy wallflower, and they shouldn't be if in federal court, it's all good.
Nothing she did in these clips rises to the level of abuse in my opinion.
As long as a judge is not personally belittling people or flat refusing to consider their arguments, I don't have a problem with tough questions. She's from the Bronx after all, they don't raise em to be shrinking violets.
The time to state your own case is when you file your briefs. Oral argument is for exactly this -- answering the judges' questions, clarifying any uncertainties, and telling the court why their concerns should not lead them to rule against you.
Re the Didden link, it's 37 minutes long. If I just want to listen to a couple of minutes, which part should I jump to?
On the other hand I was impressed by the testimony of the next four appointees, Breyer, Ginsberg, Roberts and Alito.
Even so, I think the criticism that Judge Sotomayor's questions from the bench were abrasive and intemperate is misplaced. Her questions sounded to me like the typical give and take of oral argument -- the kind we trial and appellate attorneys get every day from trial and appellate courts. I much prefer that style to the "dead fish stare" some judges adopt. Any understanding of a judge's thinking about my argument gives me more potential ammunition that I can use to persuade.
A happy thought for young lawyers: being memorably yelled at a few times by 'wise' old folks in black robes will likely forever cure any residual fear of public speaking and/or embarrassment. Or it will turn you into a back-office ERISA compliance lawyer...
Well, she apparently views herself as an advocate rather than an impartial jurist. That is something that should concern everyone.
And yes, having argued about 12 federal appeals, I'd much rather have a strong questioner who knows the case and aggressively pushes each side's vulnerable points than a charming, polite judge who says nothing. What good does that do anyone?
The judicial conduct that annoyed me involved judges who rarely asked questions (or occasionally asked obvious ones) since they hadn't bothered to read the briefs.
So, how do you guys feel about Clarence Thomas?
My main objections to Sotomayor relate to
-her dubious grasp of the English langauge
-the fact that she's an intellectual lightweight who owes her entire career to affirmative action
-that she's spent her entire adult life advocating policies that fly in the face of the constitution
-her apparent ignorance of the constitution whenever it compels an outcome she doesn't like
The only good thing I can say about her is that she's an intellectual lightweight who will bring disrepute to leftist policies through her mediocrity.
Think of her nomination as a sort of roundabout way of giving Souter a severe head trauma.
You failed to mention how fortunate she is in her choice of enemies.
After your explanation of how statutes of limitation work in the Didden thread, I'm thinking you may be a Sotomayor sock puppet.
Smart lawyers take sharp questions as opportunities. If a judge sees a hole in my case, I want her to tell me about it. That gives me a chance to explain why it isn't a hole. Sharp questions also don't eat up large chunks of my 15 minutes with long-winded wind-ups.
The quotes of Sotomayor in the article may have been sharply worded, but they stuck to the facts and the law at issue. They weren't personal. That's exactly what you want to hear from a judge in oral argument.
Briefing an appellate case is a one-way information dump. Lawyers dump information on judges. Oral argument a lawyer's one opportunity to respond to a judge's concerns.
Sometime when I have two and a half hours of free time, I'll listen to the arguments cited, but the quotes provided in the article show that she is a sharp, no-nonsense questioner. Good for her. Good for the lawyers who appear before her. Good for the litigants with the stronger cases.
Could you go to one of the Didden threads and post your analysis of the NY state law in question re: Didden? (I don't wish to invite someone to hijack this particular thread.) I haven't seen anyone argue against Steve's position at all on the basis of the state law and the way that each court has interpreted it. The other side seems to argue a generic "clock doesn't run until condemnation" point, not addressing if Steve is correct that per controlling law the clock starts running at the point where public purpose is declared. If he is not correct I'd be happy to see you (or someone) point it out on the basis of NY state law. Unless I missed it, in all of his many posts on this issue Ilya hasn't really tried.
I'm not trying to be snarky or anything - this is a genuine request. Thanks!
The only good thing I can say about her is that she's an intellectual lightweight who will bring disrepute to leftist policies through her mediocrity."
It seems to me that unless you have equivalent academic credentials and professional experience, this is just sour grapes. What do you have to justify your own credibility and qualify you as an expert witness?
how does that square with graduating summa from Princeton, with the Pyne Prize and nearly straight A's her last two years of college? Also, it sounds like she was a pretty good practicing lawyer.
So Thomas can rely on Sotomayor to do his work for him, as he relied on Souter before her? BTW, why do you consider it "showboating" to ask "obvious questions"? I would have thought that, if a question was obvious, it would be obvious to ask it.
So would I, but I have seen no indication that this describes Sotomayor. Being an "active" questioner is not the same as being a "strong questioner who knows the case." In fact, early criticisms noted this distinction: "She ... is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue." "Sotomayor ... rankled her colleagues by sending long memos that didn't distinguish between substantive and trivial points," ....
Have you seen any indication that a judge who doesn't ask any questions "knows the case"?
how does that square with graduating summa from Princeton, with the Pyne Prize and nearly straight A's her last two years of college?
You're making the mistake of assuming the facts matter to that person's opinion.
I hear SoSo digging deeper for facts, when I listen close, and lawyers parrying some of those attempts. Perhaps that level isn't supposed to be trier of fact, but it's the level making the transition from trier of fact to a higher level review, and the boundaries are going to inevitably be blurred, I'd think. Fine for a guy to shield weaker portions of his case, but don't complain when that shield gets swept aside, as it must be.
Lawyering has its place, but quite frankly, I hope the lawyers at the higher level are doing their lawyering with a pen and paper, and not by speechifying. If that's what your case depends on, you deserve to lose.
The lower levels? But of course, good lawyering is a necessity, and comprised of all facets.
The Pyne Prize was given by Derek Bok, the Princeton president who wrote The Shape of River. Bok is a leftist. The "community service" portion makes me suspicious, I doubt he he would mind demeaning the prize to give to a minority just because. Sadly it only cheapens her possible accomplishments because everyone else suspects the same. Look at the other person who won the Prize that year - he's some high-powered managing director at a private hedge fund, formerly a VP at Morgan Stanley, and he did a quant major in college. She seems to have spent alot of time in Latin American History; amongst lawyers, I will not comment further than that. When Bill Gates went to Harvard, he himself realized that he didn't want to major in mathematics since it was much too competitive between all the superlative intellects there. Same with Gregory Mankiw I believe, apparently he choose to become an economist for the same reason. Everyone realizes that there's a pseudo-hierarchy when they go to college, whether they like to admit it or not. I imagine Constitutional Law enjoys much of the same privilege amongst lawyers.
Sotomayor is perfectly qualified for the Court. However, it's obvious that Obama was not triangulating for intellectual ability, but rather racialist and feminist judges - the shortlist said as much. A mediocrity amongst superlatives? Perhaps.
So what? Why do I care about anonymous attacks with no references to oral arguments to back them up? The arguments are on tape. Play the stinking tape or shut up. As to the in-chambers sniping, there's no way to tell if it's true or just some clerk who got ticked that Sotomayor didn't like his or her draft.
There are plenty of substantive reasons to criticize Sotomayor's views. Trashing her top credentials as the product of AA is simply alienating to people, and makes it seem like conservatism and the GOP are just a home for bitter white guys. This is really not the right image to project, because it's not true and it's a political disadvantage.
I think you're being too kind. Editor at the Yale Law Review and summa cum laude at Princeton seem to me, at least, to be the type of credentials that make you one of the top ten or fifteen most sought after graduates in a given year -- especially given the fact that Sotomayor is bilingual. And people are comparing her to Hariet Myers? Bizarre.
I can understand people feeling reticent about the intellectual heft of Sotomayor's opinions, but I think this is misplaced. Outside of the decisions Sotomayor issued on the S.D.N.Y., she appears to me to be overly cautious, not lacking in intellectual prowess. I get the feeling Sotomayor has been "running" for Supreme Court ever since she was blitzed in the hearings over whether she should be raised to the Second Circuit.
I don't have any particularly problem with Sotomayor attempting to avoid controversy that would cause her trouble in a nomination battle -- we all have our roles in this world -- outside of the fact that none of us, conservatives or liberals, really have a handle on what type of judge she will be.
2) On SoSo's style: as has been pointed out, this is a quite common style, which, based purely on personal observation, may be due to the fact that she was first a District Court judge, where the facts are to be determined, rather than first appointed to the Appeals Court, where facts are at least initially accepted as found below. You always get odd benches when they designate a D.Ct. judge to sit, and often you won't know that until the day of argument, when there's an unfamiliar name on the list and you rush to the library to find out who that is.
3) It is, as was said, always better to find out what the judge is thinking at argument. So, I knew I was in trouble when a judge specially designated himself to sit on one of my panels, and interrupted my response right away to say: "I have a problem with the current state of the law." At least he was up front about it.
4) Best way to think about oral argument: it's a conversation, not a debate, and not a speech. Talk to Noo Yawkers. There's nothing unusual about her conversational style. It's rough-and-tumble, elbows-out, full-throttle litigation up there. You gotta wanna win, not score style points. No pretense about high-fallutin' philosophy and certainly no bending toward courtesy, professional or otherwise. But on the other hand, watch one of these guys when they come south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Cousin Vinnie, anyone?
Derek Bok was the president of Harvard. Facts are pesky little things.
Bowen is not a leftist.
I should "come on"? When Cato tries to denigrate Sotomayor's prize by saying that she got it from a leftist, I should divine that he meant Bowen when he "slipped up" and said Bok? Whether Bowen or Bok, you would seem to agree that he was wrong to attribute the prize to a leftist source.
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