Sunday Supplement

Sonia Sotomayor made this remark during a 2001 speech to a University of California, Berkeley conference on law and diversity: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

First, wouldn't we all hope so, or are there some out there (perhaps the same people who are rooting out loud for President Obama to fail) who would hope that Latinas wouldn't reach a better conclusion--and if so, is that a racist sentiment?

Doesn't Judge Sotomayor know any Constitutional Law ? How could she conclude that the Supreme Court might come to poor conclusions where race is involved given its previous decisions like: (1) The Dred Scott case--where it held that blacks were property; (2) Plessey v. Furgeson where it held that separate but equal was fine and dandy (overruled in Brown v. Bd. of Education despite a memo written by then law clerk William Rhenquist that Plessy was good law and ought to be upheld); (3) the Japanese exclusion cases Hirabayashi v. United States (320 US 81, 1943) that upheld concentration camps based upon race); or (4) The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U.S. 581 (1889) (refusing to readmit to this country a Chinese laborer with a certificate allowing him readmission to the U.S.)

Some of our wisest judges have been women. Deborah, in Judges in the Bible, for example--and Judge Judy. Who is to say that we should appoint judges with no experience in real life? We are all shaped by our experiences, that's what makes us who we are, and gives us perspective. Should we hold potential judges in padded cells or preserve them in aspic so they have no idea what the real world is all about?

I once appeared before a judge as an Assistant District Attorney to oppose a bail application for a driver charged with driving while intoxicated. This was years ago when the offense was taken less seriously than now, and the judge indicated he was considering releasing the defendant on his own recognizance. Then he asked where the offense occurred. When I told him, he said "My mother lives on that street! Fifty thousand in a secured bond." Yet, ours is a government of laws and not men (or wise Latinas.)

The sum of our experiences makes us who we are, no matter what we say or believed to the contrary when we were still young. The wisdom of today appears on our T shirts (see nifty segue below) and I have often been fond of this saying from one of them: "My karma ran over my dogma."

Which brings me to Twitter. Will wisdom in the future be limited to 140 characters? Twenty-five words or less? Will that accord with our more modern attention span? Did Pirandello have a Twitter address : 140 Characters in search of an author? Will Twitter be the death of spelling (not Tori) as well as literature? " 2 B or not 2 B?" " i no y the kged bird twits?" Just asking.