Elena Kagan

You're going to here many critiques of Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court nominee. One that is bound to have some traction is that she has never served as a judge before. Well, neither did William Rehnquist.

Personally, I'm not sure what I think. A lot of people on the left seem to think she is a compromise candidate. I certainly want the most liberal justice Obama can get through. She doesn't seem to be the most liberal that was on the supposed short list. Could any of the others get confirmed?

Maybe more on this later if I have time to do some reading.


UPDATE: When he named Kagan as his nominee this morning Obama mentioned that she is a fan of The Hated New York Mets. All Senators should weigh this sobering fact appropriately.

Getting It Right

To follow up on something I wrote about some time ago, the Supreme Court ruled today that a school strip searching a young teenage girl to look for a couple of prescription Advil was unconstitutional. I disagree with the majority that the administrator that ordered it is not culpable but at least the court finally found something that is a step to far.

The ruling was 8 - 1. Any guesses who thought the strip search of a teenage girl was OK?

Your first and only hint...



That's right. Clarence.

Sotomayor: Serious Complaints That Aren't

First, the Ricci case. The complaint is that she allowed the city of New Haven to throw out a firefighters' promotion test that showed clear favortism (not intentional) toward white applicants. The clear implication is that she threw it out to allow blacks and Hispanics to gain an advantage over whites. In reality she clearly followed the law, the EEOC rulings, and court precedents. Hilzoy does the leg work here.

Second, the complaint she's been overturned by the Supreme Court an inordinate number of times. RBC has the goods on this score. The 2nd circuit court, where Sotomayor serves, has a reversal rate of around 75%. Of the opinions that Sotomayor has written the rate is 60%. She's better than the court average. They also point out that SCOTUS only takes the cases that they think are questionable to begin with resulting in a high overturn rate of those cases. The circuit courts have to take everything appealed to them. The total number of opinions that have never been reviewed, in essence upheld by default, is significantly higher than the number reviewed.

Sotomayor: Opposition from "serious" people.

Greg Mankiw with the "she doesn't save enough" argument.

Apparently, the new Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is an example of the latter. The Washington Post reports that the 54-year-old Sotomayer has a $179,500 yearly salary but

On her financial disclosure report for 2007, she said her only financial holdings were a Citibank checking and savings account, worth $50,000 to $115,000 combined. During the previous four years, the money in the accounts at some points was listed as low as $30,000.

My grandmother would have been shocked and appalled to see someone who makes so much save so little.

"Some Conservatives" and the "pigs' feet" argument.

Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.”

This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs’ feet with chickpeas — would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

And somewhere out there (I can't find the link in the couple minutes I have free) people are complaining that she doesn't pronounce her name American-like. "Why isn't in 'meyer' instead of 'my-ORE'" they complain. Really, they are complaining that a person of Puerto Rican dissent doesn't have an Anglican name. Or maybe, just maybe, they're real complaint is that she's not Anglican.

UPDATE: Found it! You will be assimilated.

The Heller Case

Publius at Obsidian Wings takes on Originalism as a method of deciding constitutional questions. Ultimately, I agree with the outcome of the court's decision but I 100% agree with Publius on the validity of Originalism.

More On SCOTUS Rulings

D.C. residents will be able to own hand guns now. Chicago will follow soon. Emperor For Life Daley is having conniptions.

The Supremes said that it is unconstitutional to put child rapists to death. Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, where the case originated, signed a bill allowing/requiring castration of the offenders.

It “provides that on a first conviction of aggravated rape, forcible rape, second degree sexual battery, aggravated incest, molestation of a juvenile when the victim is under the age of 13, [b]or an aggravated crime against nature[/b], the court may sentence the offender to undergo chemical castration. On a second conviction of the above listed crimes, the court is required to sentence the offender to undergo chemical castration.”

That alone should mean this law won't stand muster. What exactly is a "crime against nature?"

But I really like this even more:

Of course, the Supremes court easily strike down this law on the same grounds as they did capital punishment, given that they have arrogated to themselves the sole power to decide what constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Um, no. The U.S. Constitution did that.

Disappointed

::sigh::

Barack Obama has twice disappointed me in the past two weeks. First he has been wishy-washy on the FISA bill vote in the House that will grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies that tapped phone calls without a warrant.

Now, he's spoken out against the Supreme Court decision banning the death penalty for child rape.

I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes. I think that the rape of a small child, six or eight years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution.

Don't get me wrong, I find rape in any form to be a heinous crime. I don't even want to try to compare the degree of evil between rape and murder. No, I find the death penalty absolutely unjustifiable.

Not to rehash everything I've said in the past let me summarize my opposition as this: In any system implemented and run by human beings is fallible. When that system kills a person based on an error, the error cannot be undone.

I don't know if Obama is pandering or he really believes what he said. Either way I think he is wrong. It won't change my vote. McCain is equally wrong on both these points and wrong on many more issues where Obama is right.

Still, I'm disappointed.