Sonia Sotomayor

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Sonia Sotomayor (2009)

Sonia Maria Sotomayor [ ˈsoʊnjə ˌsoʊtɵ.maɪˈɔr ] (born June 25, 1954 in New York City ) is an American lawyer and since 2009 a judge at the United States Supreme Court . On May 26, 2009, she was nominated for this office by US President Barack Obama . On August 6, 2009, the Senate confirmed her nomination. Two days later she was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts .

Live and act

Sonia Sotomayor, whose parents are from Puerto Rico , grew up in the Bronx . Her parents, Celina and Juan Sotomayor, married during World War II . Her mother was a member of the American Women's Corps, and later she worked as a telephone operator and as a nurse. Sotomayor was very close to her grandmother as a child. She was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of eight . When she was nine years old, her father died at the age of 42 of heart problems as a result of years of alcohol consumption. Only after his death did Sotomayor learn the English language fluently, as the father had previously only spoken to her in Spanish. As a child, Sotomayor wanted to be a police officer. Because of her diabetes, however, she was unable to do so and instead turned to a career in the judiciary . Due to the significantly worse prognosis of diabetes at the time , Sotomayor assumed a reduced life expectancy and tried, according to her own statement, to enjoy life to the fullest. Her studies were made possible by means of affirmative action . She studied at Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1976 and then studied law at Yale Law School until 1979 . During her studies at Princeton she worked as an activist for the international recognition of Puerto Rico and tried to push through an increased number of Hispanic professors. She was also the editor of the Yale Law Journal .

She then worked as a prosecutor in New York County , which includes the Manhattan area, under the long-time Attorney General Robert M. Morgenthau , until she moved to a New York law firm in 1984. From 1984 to 1992, Sotomayor was a corporate attorney with the New York law firm Pavia & Harcourt. During this time, Sotomayor represented Italian luxury goods manufacturers in the fight against counterfeiting .

In 1991, Sotomayor was nominated by US President George HW Bush for a judge's office at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and confirmed by the US Senate in 1992. In 1992, Sotomayor became the first Hispanic judge to serve in the federal court of the southern district of New York. In 1995, an order issued by Sotomayor ended a labor dispute in Major League Baseball in which the players had previously been on strike for 232 days against salary caps. In 1997, US President Bill Clinton nominated Federal Judge Sotomayor for one of the seats on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit . After confirmation by the Senate, she took up this office in 1998. Over the next decade, Sotomayor negotiated over 3,000 cases and complaints in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and wrote around 380 reasons for judgment. In addition to her judicial work, Sotomayor taught law as an adjunct professor at New York University from 1998 to 2007 .

Supreme Court Justice

After David Souter announced in May 2009 that he would be stepping down as a judge at the US Supreme Court , Sotomayor was soon touted as a favorite for Souter's successor. The nomination by President Obama was on May 6, 2009.

The Senate finally voted 68 to 31 votes for Sotomayor's nomination on August 6, with the members of the Democratic faction involved in the vote (apart from Ted Kennedy, who was absent due to illness ), voting for them unanimously. The Republicans voted for nine votes in favor and all 31 against. She is the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve as a judge on the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor is considered a representative of the political center. So far, she has taken a decidedly left-wing position almost exclusively on the question of affirmative action - the measures with which members of minorities are to be supported in education and work. In several cases involving the execution of the death penalty , she took the disagreed view of the majority in the court that the use of midazolam could cause the death row inmate to endure excruciating pain. If so, the execution would violate the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Sonia Sotomayor has been awarded honorary doctorates by several US universities. In 2002 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society and in 2018 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . She is divorced and has no children.

In early 2013 she published an autobiography called My Beloved World .

Opposing positions

Sotomayor was accused of racism by Republican politician Newt Gingrich in the course of her nomination as a Supreme Court judge . According to the reading of the critics, in a 2001 speech she presented the experience of a “wise Latina ” as being of higher value than that of a male white. In her Senate hearings, however, she resolutely distanced herself from this interpretation.

Her nomination for the Supreme Court is seen by Fred Barnes, a journalist for the more conservative Fox News Channel and editor of The Weekly Standard , as a pure implementation of the affirmative action concept. As an exponent of two marginalized groups (woman, Latina), Sotomayor was preferred to better qualified competitors.

Publications

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcement on nytimes.com dated May 26, 2009, accessed May 26, 2009
  2. ^ Sotomayor takes oath, becomes Supreme Court justice , CNN, August 8, 2009, accessed August 8, 2009
  3. ↑ Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Sotomayor, a Trailblazer and a Dreamer (en) . 
  4. ↑ Book Review: Sotomayor Opens Up About Childhood, Marriage In 'Beloved World' (en) . In: NPR.org . 
  5. ↑ Der Spiegel, March 31, 2014, p. 84.
  6. ↑ Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Sotomayor, a Trailblazer and a Dreamer (en) . 
  7. ↑ Jan Hoffman: A Breakthrough Judge: What She Always Wanted (en) . 
  8. ↑ Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Sotomayor, a Trailblazer and a Dreamer (en) . 
  9. ↑ Book Review: Sotomayor Opens Up About Childhood, Marriage In 'Beloved World' (en) . In: NPR.org . 
  10. ↑ From the Bronx to the Constitutional Court Die Zeit from May 26, 2009.
  11. ↑ Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Sotomayor, a Trailblazer and a Dreamer (en) . 
  12. ^ Amy Goldstein: Sotomayor's College Activism Was Passionate but Civil . June 1, 2009.
  13. ^ Karen Sloan: Nominee's civil practice was with a small, but specialized, firm . May 27, 2009.
  14. ↑ Jan Hoffman: A Breakthrough Judge: What She Always Wanted (en) . 
  15. ^ Roger I. Abrams: Legal bases. Baseball and the law . Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1998. pp. 173-200
  16. ↑ Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Sotomayor, a Trailblazer and a Dreamer (en) . 
  17. ^ Result of the vote of the Senate. United States Senate, August 6, 2009, accessed January 6, 2019 .
  18. ↑ a b Keith B. Richburg: NY Federal Judge Likely on shortlist , www.washingtonpost.com of 7 May 2009, accessed on 7 May 2009
  19. ↑ Christoph von Marschall: Obama's chief judge , www.tagesspiegel.de of May 26, 2009
  20. ↑ Deanna Paul, Mark Berman: Tennessee executes killer with controversial drugs that Justice Sotomayor said could inflict 'torturous pain' , Washington Post, August 9, 2018
  21. ^ Member History: Sonia Sotomayor. American Philosophical Society, accessed February 8, 2019 .
  22. ↑ Emily Bazelon : The Making of a Justice . Review, in: New York Times, January 18, 2013
  23. ↑ Right calls Sotomayor racist over line in talk ( Memento of May 21, 2012 on the Internet Archive ), San Francisco Chronicle, May 29, 2009
  24. ^ Matt Corley: Barnes: Sotomayor 'benefited' from affirmative action 'tremendously.' In: Think Progress , May 28, 2009.

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Sotomayor, Sonia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sotomayor, Sonia Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City