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Sotomayor & Natural Rights |
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Written by Hadley Arkes
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Monday, 20 July 2009 12:24 |
There was a moment in the hearings on Judge Sotomayor when Sen. Coburn asked her whether there was a “fundamental right” of self-defense. He had in mind, of course, the ground for that right, mentioned in the Second Amendment, to “keep and bear arms.” It was rather striking that, when asked the question, Judge Sotomayor began to wonder aloud about the shape of the laws in different States in recognizing that right of persons to defend themselves. It was curious and telling: that her reflex was to consider that right to self-defense as a right conferred by the positive law, the laws in the separate States. Evidently absent from her state of mind was the notion of self-defense as one of those natural or inalienable rights, the kinds of rights that governments could not be warranted in removing. Apparently she hadn’t noticed that in the famous Heller case of last summer, Justice Scalia finally traced the right to keep and bear arms to that fundamental right of self-defense. That was rather hard to miss, since the local law in DC was challenged as impeding people in the use of guns to defend their safety in their own homes. But in appealing to that deep right of self-defense, Scalia was appealing to something not mentioned in the Second Amendment. He evidently thought that the Second Amendment had drawn upon that deep right that did not depend for its validity on being mentioned anywhere in the text of the Constitution.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 02 March 2010 17:00 |
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APP Backgrounder: Defining moments in Judge Sotomayor's career |
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 16 July 2009 10:30 |
 This backgrounder has been prepared by APP staff. It highlights the important decisions made by Judge Sotomayor and what they could mean for her career on the Supreme Court should she be approved:
Ricci v. DeStefano: Based on this case, Americans ought to be wary of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s inclination to place racial preference ahead of fairly-earned merit in instances of job promotion. The infamous case, recently overturned by the Supreme Court, dealt with a group of New Haven fire-fighters seeking promotions based on test scores that were later discarded by New Haven because the “results showed the tests to be discriminatory,” and may have prompted litigation stemming from the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling through a per curium decision, and later voted 7-6 to deny rehearing en banc, over the dissenting opinion of Judge Jose Cabranes. Judge Sotomayor had been a member of the both the three-judge panel that summarily affirmed the District Court and a member of the seven-judge majority denying the en banc rehearing.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 02 March 2010 17:03 |
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What to watch for: Charmaine Yoest testimony |
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Written by Thomas Peters
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Thursday, 16 July 2009 00:24 |
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 Today the lone representative of a pro-life organization (Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life) will give her testimony at the Judge Sotomayor Senate confirmation hearings.
Americans United for Life (AUL) has been instrumental in doing the legal homework on Sotomayor's involvement with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF).
After the break I explain the importance of this claimed connection between Sotomayor and PRLDEF policy.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 02 March 2010 17:03 |
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Written by Hadley Arkes
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Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:42 |
The response to Feinstein’s questions was more revealing or interesting than I had anticipated.
Sotomayor twice declined to take Feinstein’s bait, or her invitation, to attack Chief Justice Roberts and decisions he had helped to shape. One was in response to the case on partial-birth abortion (Gonzales v. Carhart, 2007) and the case dealing with the standing of “tax payers” to litigate (Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation). In the Gonzales case, Feinstein notably omitted the point that the case involved that gruesome procedure of puncturing the skull of the child and sucking out the contents. That procedure was performed without an anaesthetic for the victim of the killing. But the presence of a victim and pain was screened out by Senator Feinstein: she noted only that this case seemed to contradict a string of cases that affirmed “the health” of the pregnant woman as a cardinal point on these matters of abortion. Feinstein seemed to suggest that this concern for the health of the woman should have been seen as the decisive or controlling concern.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 02 March 2010 17:04 |
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