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Does Sotomayor Believe What She Said? What She Says? Either?

In his questioning today Sen. Cornyn asked Judge Sotomayor about a number of contradictions between what she has said in various speeches over the years and her answers to questions before the Judiciary Committee. (HatTip to Jonathan Adler)

Here?s my favorite question and response, dealing with with Sotomayor?s initial disagreement but now claimed agreement with the well-known observation of Justice O?Connor that ?a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.?

To refresh your memory, in case you haven?t memorized this by now, here is what Sotomayor said in her ?wise Latina? speech in Berkeley in 2001:

Justice O?Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O?Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn?t lived that life.

With these quotes in mind, let?s turn to the question and answer.

Sen. Cornyn:

.... In 2001, you disagreed explicitly with Justice O?Connor's view of whether a wise man and wise woman would reach the same decision. Yet, during these hearings, you characterized your argument as being that you agreed with her.

Judge Sotomayor:

I didn?t disagree with what I understood was the basic premise that Justice O?Connor was making, which was that being a man or a woman doesn?t affect the capacity of someone to judge fairly or wisely. What I disagreed was with the literal meaning of her words because neither of us meant the literal meaning of our words. My use of her words was pretty bad in terms of leaving a bad impression. But both of us were talking about the value of experience and the fact that it gives you equal capacity.

What does Sotomayor think the ?literal meaning? of Justice O?Connor?s words is? What part of their ?literal meaning? does she disagree with? Can anyone who understands English read Sotomayor?s speech and believe that she was expressing her belief that race, ethnic, and sex differences among judges would lead them all to the same conclusion?

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 16, 2009 (boomark / email).