One California inmate dies every eight days from inadequate medical care.  In one case, a prisoner who experienced “recurrent severe abdominal pain and vomiting over a five week period” received no treatment until they eventually died.  Moreover, lawsuits stretch back twenty years seeking to remedy these unconstitutional conditions — until a federal court finally ordered the state to reduce its prison population.  That order is now before the Supreme Court.

Against this backdrop, Justice Sonia Sotomayor confronted California’s attorney with some of the more horrific stories from California’s unconstitutional prison system, and received a mocking response from fellow Justice Antonin Scalia:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Well, the best interest of the State of California, isn’t it to deliver adequate constitutional care to the people that it incarcerates? That’s a constitutional obligation.

MR. PHILLIPS: Absolutely. And California recognizes that.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So when are you going to get to that? When are you going to avoid the needless deaths that were reported in this record? When are you going to avoid or get around people sitting in their feces for days in a dazed state? When are you going to get to a point where you are going to deliver care that is going to be adequate?

JUSTICE SCALIA: Don’t be rhetorical.

Listen:

While Scalia’s remark was ostensibly directed at California’s attorney, it was clearly intended to slight Sotomayor.  Earlier in the proceeding, Sotomayor had warned the attorney to “slow down from the rhetoric” when he repeatedly characterized the lower court’s action as “extraordinary.”  So Scalia is suggesting that Sotomayor also crossed an inappropriate rhetorical line when she expressed concern for human beings left helpless in a pile of their own excrement.

One of the most disgusting displays of the last two years has been right-wing lawmakers demanding that all judges must purge themselves of the capacity to identify with and understand another’s situation.  It is nothing less than terrifying that a member of the Supreme Court appears to meet their standard.

In an interview touting his plan to repeal the minimum wage, West Virginia GOP Senate candidate John Raese also slipped up by calling the man he wants to replace, Senator Carte Goodwin, by the wrong first name.  And, as the Charleston Daily Mail reports, this does not appear to be an isolated incident:

Last month, he struggled over U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s name.

“Was it Sarah Manor, Sarah Manorgan, Sarah Morgan?” he was quoted as saying by a monthly publication based in Shepherdstown.

In an appearance several weeks ago in St. Mary’s, Raese called U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu by at least two different Asian-sounding last names.

Raese’s failure to remember a name that even vaguely resembles that of a recently confirmed Supreme Court justice calls into question whether Raese has paid attention to the kind of issues he would face as a senator.  If he joins the Senate, Raese will be required to at least take the confirmation process seriously enough that he can tell the difference between “Sonia Sotomayor” and “Sarah Manorgan.”

In a desperate, last-minute ploy to scuttle Justice Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) falsely accused her of perjuring herself before the Senate Judicary Committee:

Later in her hearing, Judge Sotomayor gave the following testimony: “I will not use foreign law to interpret the Constitution or American statues. I will use American law, constitutional law to interpret those laws except in the situations where American law directs the court.” While this kind of declarative statement would normally provide some measure of comfort, it is belied by words Judge Sotomayor uttered less than three months ago, that judges were “commanded” to look to “persuasive” sources, including foreign law, in interpreting our own law. [...]

It gives me great pause that Judge Sotomayor could say one thing at a public speech earlier this year and say the opposite while under oath before the Judiciary Committee, especially since she never repudiated her speech.

Now, as Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is just as certain to be confirmed, Kyl is apparently just as desperate. In what will likely be his final floor speech on Kagan’s nomination, Kyl once again falsely accused a Supreme Court nominee of lying:

In explaining why I could not vote for now-Justice Sotomayor, I said I thought she was disingenuous with the Judiciary Committee. Obviously reaching such a conclusion precludes support notwithstanding other qualifications for the position. Reluctantly, after analysis of her testimony, weighed with her past writings, statements and actions, I have reached the same conclusion regarding Elena Kagan.

Watch it:

Kyl then proceededd to recite a long list of mythical claims about Kagan, and argue that she must have been lying at her confirmation hearing because her testimony does not square with the right’s mythology. “Exhibit A” of his case against Kagan, for example is that she claims to be in favor of gay rights, but she really has no objections to a anti-gay tenets of “Shariah law.” “Exhibit B” is that she claims to not be a judicial activist, even though she had the audacity to praise legal legend and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. And so forth.

This tactic did not work when Sotomayor was up for a vote, and it will not work now. Kyl needs to learn that there is nothing “disingenuous” about refusing to confess to an absurd list of trumped up charges again you.

In July 2009 — when he was still running in the Republican U.S. Senate primary against Marco Rubio — Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I) said that he opposed President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court because he had “strong concerns that Judge Sotomayor would not strictly and objectively construe the Constitution and lacks respect for the fundamental right to keep and bear arms.” The Miami Herald recently asked Crist whether he still stands by his opposition to Sotomayor. Crist said he did, but when pressed on why, he said he couldn’t remember:

Q: Now as an independent, do you still feel the same way, and would have opposed or supported her nomination? [...]

CRIST: As it relates to Justice Sotomayor, I would have on the same basis. I believe very much in the Second Amendment. [...]

Q: And you would still have opposed Sotomayor?

CRIST: Yeah, because of that. Yes, sir.

Q: What was her position on the Second Amendment that gave you such — ?

CRIST: To be honest, I can’t recall it right now. My friend was kind enough to add the question with evidence that indicated that. It had to be a ruling that she had had previously though. And I’m happy to research it and get it for you.

Watch it:

(HT: The Political Carnival)

Yesterday, the Supreme Court “released its first four decisions in argued cases this term,” including one marking Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s debut. The case concerned “whether federal trial-court rulings concerning the lawyer-client privilege may be appealed right away,” to which Sotomayor said no. The New York Times notes one particularly noteworthy part of Sotomayor’s opinion:

In an otherwise dry opinion, Justice Sotomayor did introduce one new and politically charged term into the Supreme Court lexicon.

Justice Sotomayor’s opinion in the case, Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter, No. 08-678, marked the first use of the term “undocumented immigrant,” according to a legal database. The term “illegal immigrant” has appeared in a dozen decisions.

Terms like “illegal alien” and “illegal immigrant” are considered pejorative and offensive by immigrants rights organizations. (HT: ImmigrationProf Blog)

Yesterday was the Supreme Court’s opening day, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor took an active role in oral arguments. Sotomayor “displayed no reticence on the first day of her first term on the court; in the two cases on the docket, she asked as many questions and made as many comments as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.,” reported the Washington Post. “The only sign of her newness was that she at times forgot to turn on her microphone before posing a question.” McClatchy also observed that in just an hour, she actually asked “more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked over the course of several years.” Thomas has gone three years straight without posing a question during oral arguments.