Two additional topics were raised today in Judge Sonia Sotomayor's first day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee: the Second Amendment and the influence of foreign law on the interpretation of the Constitution. Links below, additional analysis will follow tomorrow.
In their opening statements today Republicans raised two issues that I have not previously discussed in this blog: gun rights and foreign constitutional law. In Maloney v. Cuomo a panel of the Second Circuit which included Judge Sotomayor upheld a New York State law which prohibited the possession of a "chuka stick" (commonly called "nunchucks"). The defendant had claimed that it violated the Second Amendment for New York to prohibit the possession of nunchucks in the home. The judges based their decision on the ground that the Supreme Court has not yet overruled older cases finding that the Second Amendment was not applicable against the states.
Another issue that was raised today concerns the willingness of Judge Sotomayor to rely upon the reasoning of constitutional courts in other countries in the interpretation of the United States Constitution. David M. Herzenhorn of the New York Times wrote this article on June 25 reporting Senator Jeff Sessions' criticism of Sotomayor in this regard.
I will analyze these two issues in more detail tomorrow and Wednesday.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Professor Huhn,
I wondered if you would post your thoughts on today's hearings. Following the SCOTUS live blog and reading the transcripts of opinions placed on the Judiciary's website I came to a few initial thoughts but would appreciate any thoughts you had. In particular I was struck by the extreme partisanship of the committee (exceptions being Lindsey Graham, Arlen Specter and Al Franken).
Sotomayor should not be confirmed. She is nothing more than a token appointment, as she was during her first court appointment. The path that DC is folowing is disgusting me more and more every day. This is the reason I am starting to adamantly support state's rights and secession.
Sonia Sotomayor won the Pyne Prize (top academic honors) at Princeton and was an Editor of the Yale Law Journal. She was a prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney's office (the prestigious office featured on "Law and Order"). She has ably served for 17 years as a trial and appellate judge in the federal courts.
Whom would you have preferred for President Obama to have nominated to serve on the Supreme Court? Whose qualifications are so superior to those of Judge Sotomayor that her appointment would justify your charge of "tokenism"?