Sotomayor reflects on fairness, justice in Albany talk
ALBANY — U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor addressed a New York State Bar Association gathering Thursday, telling attendees, “the only fairness the judicial process can give you is the process itself,” in a wide-ranging question-and-answer period with high school and college students.
Sotomayor appeared virtually as the keynote speaker for the bar association’s first ever civics convocation aimed at promoting a greater understanding of politics and government with an emphasis on greater youth participation.
In the hourlong event. Sotomayor touched on the role of the media, artificial intelligence and how she crafts opinions, and more frequently, her dissents on a conservative court.
“You figure out how to write your decisions so they get to the person who might be able to do something about it,” Sotormayor said. “When I disagree with the majority over how to interpret the Constitution, I’m thinking about how a different court at a different time will get a similar problem and will take something from the dissent. Dissents predict problems that might arise if you follow the majority’s views.”
Sometimes, Sotomayor said, she is writing for a larger audience.
“There are times I write a dissent for the public. To remind them they have power to make change.”
As is common when Supreme Court justices address formal gatherings, Sotomayor did not take questions from the press. Questions from students were screened and selected by the bar association.
In response to a question
from a Bethlehem High School senior, Sotomayor offered an expansive response on the intersection of fairness and justice and the court’s role in arriving at a decision.
“A court case is all or nothing. We decide winners and losers. That is the hardest part of my job,” she said. Sotomayor said she feels for the people who lose and acknowledged that “when we announce a winner, we are taking something from that loser.”
She said that because the only fairness the judicial process can give is the formal process itself, “it cant guarantee you that, in the specifics of your case, you will get an outcome that you see is fair.”
Sotomayor touched on one recent case in which she was in the majority. It centered on a Pennsylvania man from Trinidad and Tobago who was challenging a deportation ruling from a federal immigration judge. The man has a son with asthma who he is supporting and the Supreme Court’s decision will require a lower court to consider his claims.
“Should a person who has lived here for the last five, 10, 15 years and has a child with health needs, should that father be deported? That’s not a decision the courts make, it’s a decision the immigration bureau makes,” Sotormayor said. “Is it something I would personally do if given that choice? Not likely.”
The justice also briefly opined on the media, telling the audience not to fully rely on the press for coverage of the court but to also read the justices’ full decisions and dissents. She did not weigh on on whether proceedings on the nation’s highest court should be televised.
She also said that artificial intelligence was “revolutionizing the world.” “It’s going to take over the world in so may professions,” Sotomayor said. It may not take over lawyering completely but it’s going to change how we lawyer.”
She was somewhat pessimistic about the possibility of a female Supreme Court chief justice saying “maybe not in my lifetime.” She noted that Chief Justice John Roberts is younger than she is and that she was appointed nearly four years after him.
“It’s hard to predict when anyone will leave,” Sotomayor said.