Sotomayor's Supreme Court Debut Nears, Columbia Law School Experts Say She Will Fit In Right Away

Media Contact: 
Public Affairs Office 212-854-2650 [email protected]

 

New York, September 2, 2009 – As Justice Sonia Sotomayor prepares to hear her first Supreme Court case next week, Columbia Law School experts say she will waste no time helping to shape decisions and grill lawyers who come before the court.

 

As for whether she will tip the court’s ideological balance, however, professors expect she will do little to alter the current landscape.

 

“There’s nothing about her background that suggests she will radically shift the direction of the court,” said Associate Professor Olatunde Johnson.

 

Professor Theodore M. Shaw agreed, though he noted that Sotomayor – a friend of his for more than 40 years – defied easy categorization.

 

“Here’s somebody who was a prosecutor,” Shaw said. “If you look at her record in criminal justice cases, she is as likely, if not more likely, to come down on the side of law enforcement and the prosecution as on the side of a defendant.”

 

Shaw said while Sotomayor may be more prone to rule with the liberal wing of the court, he regards her as a “straight-down-the-middle judge.”

 

When Sotomayor was nominated, some commentators were quick to suggest she would vote in much the same way as Justice David Souter, whom she replaced. However, Professor Daniel Richman said even if Souter aligned more with the liberals “he’s not somebody whose ideology was so clearly consistent.”

 

Sotomayor could well turn out to be a justice whose positions change the longer she sits. Johnson cited Justice John Paul Stevens – whom she clerked for – as an example. She said Stevens’ positions on issues like affirmative action “certainly evolved” over time.

 

Professors said Sotomayor’s background as a trial court judge – the kind of experience generally lacking on the court -- could raise her stature in the early going. Especially in criminal cases, Richman – a former federal prosecutor and clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall -- said the Supreme Court had constructed “vacuous doctrinal frameworks” that have forced lower courts to figure out the justices’ intent.

 

“She’ll be giving more guidance, more of the need for clarity,” Richman said. “She’ll be much more aware of how the Supreme Court, whether it likes it or not, is at the helm of an incredibly large ship that’s very hard to steer.”

 

Sotomayor acquired a reputation as tough on lawyers who came before her in the lower courts. She even once described herself as a “bear on the bench.” Because of that, Associate Professor Jamal Greene, who also clerked for Stevens, said Sotomayor, whose first case from the bench will be Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission on Sept. 9, will be anything but a shrinking violet in her new surroundings.

 

“It’s human nature that if you’re new to an institution you get the temperature of a place before you make your mark,” Greene said, “but I don’t expect there to be a long transition period for someone like Justice Sotomayor.”

 

Indeed, Johnson expects Sotomayor to be an “active questioner” from the start. But, she added, Sotomayor won’t be alone.

 

“There are nine of them, and they all want to speak.”

 

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society. Columbia Law School joins traditional strengths in international and comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, business law and human rights law with pioneering work in the areas of intellectual property, digital technology, sexuality and gender, criminal, and environmental law.
 
Visit us at www.law.columbia.edu.