2nd Circuit Judge Calabresi on Former Student and Current Colleague Sotomayor

Fewer than 6 percent of the cases decided by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals come from Connecticut. Still, people and issues from Connecticut are likely to be highly important in the upcoming confirmation hearings of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, a 2nd Circuit judge for the past 12 years.

Former Yale Law School Dean Guido Calabresi is a colleague of Sotomayor's on the appellate court. He first met her at Yale, when he was a professor and she was a student, and was impressed with her legal talents and personal attributes.

Although Sotomayor is known for writing lengthy and layered opinions, she's likely to be questioned extensively about one of her more terse efforts. In Ricci v. New Haven, white firefighters were denied promotions when New Haven officials tossed out the results of a promotional exam on which black firefighters performed poorly. In a one-paragraph decision, Sotomayor, writing for the court, upheld the decision by New Haven officials without touching on affirmative action doctrines or other large legal issues presented by the lawsuit. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in the case.

Senior Writer Thomas B. Scheffey spoke last week with Calabresi, who shared insights into Sotomayor's character and abilities and her approach to the Ricci decision.

She's his colleague and, if she isn't confirmed, will remain his colleague.

I don't care HOW much two judges dislike each other, if they have to serve together on an appellate court they will say NOTHING negative for public consumption. They are very isolated and have to deal with and socialize with each other daily. They can't socialize with lawyers so they're kind of stuck with each other.

The idea that Sotomayor was simply trying to avoid a tough legal question in the firefighters' case is somewhat disingenuous. If a court wants to avoid reaching the merits of a case on a technicality, they almost always publish the opinion, because otherwise they are accused (as Sotomayor is here) of hiding the ball. And usually disposing of a case with an unpublished order, unless there's something radically wrong (jurisdiction, failure to preserve issue for appeal), IS an attempt to hide the ball.

In this case, there was no overarching jurisdictional problem, the case was high profile, and the unpublished order was a sneaky way to dispose of it without addressing the obvious injustice of the ruling.

That's got nothing to do with 'judicial restraint' and everything to do with smarmy racial politics.

But Judge Calabresi will never, ever say that in a million years, and if he did say it he would deny that he said it. After all, he MAY have to live with her for the remainder of her judicial career.

On Fox News this morning, Megyn Kelly was interviewing a Republican who was part of a group forming in congress to battle media bias. He said that Sotomayor was one of the lowest ranked judges when it came to her behavior in court (I forget the term he used). I hadn’t even heard that on FR. Anyone else see that?

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