Judge Sotomayor and Race: SCOTUS Blog analysis of all her race related rulings

[usregimechange]

I’ve now completed the study of every one of Judge Sotomayor’s race-related cases that I mention in the post below. I’ll write more in the morning about particular cases, but here is what the data shows in sum:

Other than Ricci, Judge Sotomayor has decided 96 race-related cases while on the court of appeals.

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1...

Given that record, it seems absurd to say that Judge Sotomayor allows race to infect her decision making.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/judge-sotomayor-and-race-results-from-the-full-data-set/

[elleng]

1. WHO said this???

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/us/politics/30affirm.html?hp

Chief Justice Roberts wrote in 2007, summing up his approach in one of the most memorable lines of his opinions.

[creeksneakers2]

2. Fantastic research!

This really proves Sotomayor's RW critics wrong. I'd love to see this get around. Mind if I link to it?

[usregimechange]

4. Go ahead but the source is SCOTUS Blog

[Colobo]

3. Good info. The woman seems to be very fair.

[vaberella]

6. That's how I see it.

She makes her decision on the rule of law and the party that fulfills the burden of proof.

[csziggy]

5. Thank you for the final analysis!

Just the facts are all we need to make our case for this excellent Supreme Court nomination.

[vaberella]

7. Thanks for taking the time out for the research. I'm not surprised by your findings.

She's a good choice by O.