Even Judge Cabranes critized Judge Sotomayor for her handling of the Ricci case, with the suggestion that Sotomayor and her fellow panel members were attempting to bury the matter.
On what she spent one paragraph, they spent 90 plus pages. And even Justice Ginsberg says these judges used the wrong standard; "The lower courts focused on respondents' 'intent' rather than on whether respondents in fact had a good cause to act." "ordinarily a remand would be in order." In other words, had the dissenters been sitting on the Second Circuit panel, they would have ordered a remand instead of affirming the district court, as Judge Sotomayor's panel summarily did. All nine Supreme Court Justices thought they decided improperly. Look to footnote 10 for what Justice Ginsburg wrote.
"Petitioners were denied promotions for which they qualified because of the race and ethnicity of the firefighters who achieved the highest scores on the City's exam. The District Court threw out their case on summary judgment, even though that court all but conceded that a jury could find that the City's asserted justification was pretextual. The Court of Appeals then summarily affirmed that decision.
The dissent grants that petitioners' situation is "unfortunate" and that they "understandably attract this Court's sympathy." But "sympathy" is not what petitioners have a right to demand. What they have a right to demand is evenhanded enforcement of the law--of Title VII's prohibition against discrimination based on race. And that is what, until today's decision, has been denied them." Justice Alito
Now had she been on the court, replace Souter with Sotomayor, the outcome doesn't change. Of course, she couldn't have heard this case. My reaction here is to this posts characterization only, not her qualifications. I still very much support her confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Posted by peter at June 29, 2009 07:27 PMSpeaking of gas bags attracted the site's #1 with a bang gas bag, who else but psycho-petie© other wise known as "he who knows and spews all"
Those voices in your head still telling you to spew all that delusional crap, because none of us can live w/o it?
You are along with several of your peer troll idiots, how do I say this? COMPLETE BORES..
psycho-petie© TLC's
Worst Person in the World
Nice to see you like W now. Even Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Good, we're making progress...
Posted by peter at June 29, 2009 08:58 PMTo go down the other path, headcase now indicates he likes Madoff, Hitler, bin Laden, any white supremacist. You did use the past tense word 'worst'. Leaves a lot of doors open for ya to like, even Nixon and Reagan!
Posted by peter at June 29, 2009 09:39 PMNice unattributed cut n' paste, peter, you turd. Who's "Judge Cabranes" to you?
Why do I have the feeling that when I actually go and read the dissent I will find that the dissenters did NOT conclude that a remand was the proper disposition? Because that's what Liar Rushbo and his cogs are arguing, and I know that all they do is lie.
I'm not sure why Greenwald talks about "11 out of 21 federal judges", that's not that persuasive. Plus the number seems off. The reality is that the trial judge of the District Court (1), the Court of Appeals panel (3) and four (out of 9) justices of the Supreme Court thought the law was on the city's side, not the white boys. So that's 8 out of 13 judges that thought the city should win, and 4 out of 4 under the existing precedents at the time.
Adding in the second circuit judges who did/didn't vote to have the case be heard by the full circuit is NOT the same issue, Glenn knows that, so why add them? All that shows is that the majority of the full 2nd circuit thought the panel decision was unremarkable and followed the existing precedents.
Frankly, the law of affirmative action has been made into such a hash by the Supreme Court in the past five years that no one can really say what the principles of this area of law are any more. The conservatives on the Supreme Court don't really like AA as a social policy, but also won't flatly declare it unconsitutional or say when it can and can't be used, so the lower courts have no real guidance on what the hell the "law" is anyway.
Posted by euzoius at June 30, 2009 05:21 AMvoices in your head particularly bad today, eh
psycho-petie©? "my friend"
Sotamayor deferred not only to precedent as a member of the unanimous three judge panel, which is one of the primary roles of the circuit courts, but also to an excellently thorough and well thought out 47 page decision by the federal court judge.
I don't think her actual rulings in previous discrimination cases, or this one for that matter, necessarily indicate she would have concurred with the minority in Ricci had she been on the Supreme Court.
Much of the high pitched screeching against her confirmation ignore the role of the circuit courts in not creating new law, her extensive record in actual cases; and frankly tells me more about the spewers bias and agenda than it enlightens about Sotamayor.