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In ?98, Hints From Sotomayor on Death Penalty

By standdown

That's the title of a report in today's New York Times on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.  It's written by Benjamin Weiser.  LINK  Here's an excerpt from the beginning:As a drug kingpin and his bodyguard, both black, faced the first death penalty trial in Manhattan since the days of the Rosenbergs, their lawyers argued that the practice of capital punishment was racist. ?We?re doing what the death penalty has always done historically, which is target minority people,? one of the lawyers said in 1998 as he asked a Federal District Court judge to declare the penalty unconstitutional. That judge was Sonia Sotomayor ? a Bronx-born woman of Puerto Rican descent who as a young lawyer had leveled much the same attack on capital punishment...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 25, 2009 (boomark / email).