Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Sotomayor Debate
If you were in class today, you should recall our little discussion on Justice Sonia Sotomayor at the end of our presentation on Psychological Legal Realism. If you weren't in class and you still read this post, then we basically just talked about the implications that Justice Sotomayor would be considered a Legal Realist. If you recall we asked a few questions regarding the issue of having a Realist in the Supreme Court, however there was one question that I wanted to ask the class that I forgot to mention during my presentation. Personally I do agree with the ideas that Legal Realism talks about, and because I do it makes me concerened to think that judges are basing their decisions based on their own personal beliefs and backgrounds, even if they don't even know it. So there were actually two questions I wanted to ask regarding these ideas. The first being whether or not you guys believe that judges are really making these decisions outside of legal statute; and second being, if you do agree with these ideas layed out by Legal Realism, does it bother you to think that judges are making decisions based off of these outside factors from their own beliefs and backgrounds?
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I have a problem with it personally. I believe that this is just another way of saying legal activism. When a new justice is sworn in they swear to leave there personal beliefs at the door and strictly interpret the constitution. This is exactly what they should be doing. If judges are allowed to use personal beliefs to decide cases, then they should be elected not assigned.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your questions, yes I do believe that judges make decisions based outside of legal statues and it doesn’t bother me. It would faulty to think that judges can simply remove their humanity, biases, and personal experience simply because of the position they hold on the court. They may try not to incorporate these non legal standards to their decisions, but it is nearly impossible to do so. They would no, longer be humans but computers. More so, I don’t see them bringing their personal experience to court decisions problematic so long as the court is diverse. This way regardless of what personal standards they may be using, there is an equal and counteracting belief so that some form of balance and fairness can be achieved. Now realistically that doesn’t happen, so in practice these outside factors might cause bias verdicts, but as the courts throughout history sway back and forth in allegiance, I believe it evens out in the end.
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