Justice Sotomayor and Murderer Advocacy

I have a critique of Justice Sotomayor’s media-ignored but highly revealing Dec. 3 dissent seeking mercy for twice-convicted triple-murderer Benny Lee Hodge. The dissent deserves attention for what it says, what it implies and what it disregards. It is a graphic illustration of the grave danger of confirming justices whose values are contrary to those of a vast majority of the public – and have no scruples about rewriting the Constitution to contain commands nowhere within the actual written document.
 
Sotomayor’s dissent is a call for a highly organized campaign to inform the public about how justices have abused what Justice White famously termed their “raw judicial power” and to vigorously oppose placing more justices such as Sotomayor on the Supreme Court (and lower courts).
 
Essentially, Sotomayor takes the position that "especially heinous" murders cannot and need not be "explained" but can and should be "mitigated," in a quest to find “at least one juror” who can be persuaded to show “respect” and “mercy” for a brutal killer who celebrated slaughtering his victims without mercy. In lecturing the Kentucky Supreme Court that this has been “clear” for 30 years, Sotomayor implicitly admits that it had never been “clear” before that – for the very good reason that such judicial concoctions never before existed because they were and are not in the Constitution.
 
In arguing for “mitigation” and “mercy,” Sotomayor is less than forthright. She complains of "deficient" attention to Hodge's abused childhood by his lawyer in the appealed death sentence for a single murder before the court. However, she omits that Hodge is actually facing two death sentences from two trials, for three premeditated murders and one attempted murder on two separate occasions 27 years ago, not one death sentence for one murder. And she omits that in the trial resulting in the other death sentence, Hodge’s lawyers presented “substantial” so-called mitigation evidence, including referring to his abused childhood.

New Fox News Op-ed: Serious Questions About Sotomayor and Race: With today's Supreme Court ruling there are even more questions about Sonia Sotomayor

My new piece at Fox News starts this way:

With the Supreme Court narrowly striking down Judge Sonia Sotomayor's decision in the New Haven fire fighter's case, it emphasizes the importance of a single vote and there are renewed questions about her judgment on race. It brings back into focus not only her comments on the superiority of certain racial groups and women, but when combined with her recent comments on the Belizean Grove club indicate a very selective and self serving decisions on deciding when discrimination is occurring.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor can't take back her seven speeches over a decade where she talked about women's (or Latina women's) judgment being superior to men' (or white men's). But, about a week ago, almost a month after her Supreme Court nomination, Judge Sotomayor resigned as a member of the extremely exclusive all-woman club, the Belizean Grove. If she were a Republican man, such a withdrawal would have come too late. Worse, her letter announcing her withdrawal from the organization raises questions about her judgment.

In June 1990, all but one of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and one then Republican, Arlen Specter, warned future judicial nominees that membership in an organization that determines membership based on gender could be sufficient to deny confirmation. Further, it would be held against the nominee unless they "actively engaged" in efforts to get underrepresented groups into the organization. . . .