Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor graduated with honors from Ivy League schools. But she may have learned some of her most memorable lessons as a young prosecutor, following police into abandoned tenements and tracking down witnesses on the grimy streets of New York.

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I wish I could believe the story, but Judge Sotomayor's own writings and speeches suggest that her most memorable and influential momemts were not spent with law enforcement.

This organization analyzed Judge Sotomayor's performance on the bench, regarding criminal cases:

http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/judge/213/

Although--as someone math-deficient--I have issues with statistics and graphs, her stint as a trial judge seems encouraging. Just a thought, but it might be more useful, however, to see how she reasoned and ruled when constitutional issues were presented to her.

JAS

I agree, JAS. Knowing how ANY SCOTUS candidate reasons out constitutional issues would be very helpful. I am encouraged by the statistics on her sentencing history.
She was once one of us. I genuinely believe in what I do, and I like to think that my colleagues and former colleagues do, too. The fact that she took a public service job at $17,000 a year, after graduating with honors from an Ivy League school speaks volumes to me.

[This message was edited by e hernandez on 07-16-09 at .]

I looked quickly to see whether any sitting Justice had state trial court prosecution experience. I could find none. Some were with attorney general offices, not comparable. Some were with U.S. Attorney offices. I doubt that she spent five years in the Manhattan District Attorney's office doing her nails and getting coffee during the early 80's. The whole story JB cited describes what I think most of us do or did when we were young lawyers in a felony prosecution office. For all we know she might have sided with Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer and Alito in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts.

Yep, I see more than a glimmer of hope in what she might bring to the High Court. Possibly, she can be a surprise--as Souter was the other way!

JAS

The Supreme Court's two former prosecutors sit on opposite ends of the court's long mahogany bench, and they take very different views of the criminal justice system.

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I began to get a bad feeling about her nomination when VP Joe Biden assured prosecutors that she would be a strong voice for the prosecution. Sure enough, it looks like another of his predictions has proven dead wrong.

If you ever watched Law & Order, you know that the Manhatten DA's Ofc. has a lot of namby pambs in their ranks. Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised.