Judges

By mid-morning on the first day of the Supreme Court's term, it was clear new Justice Sonia Sotomayor would fit right in -- and in particular with her talkative fellow New Yorkers. Sotomayor peppered the lawyers with questions in a pair of cases, joining with Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the oral arguments. Together, they left the other justices sitting in silence for much of the time. In the first hour alone, Sotomayor asked 36 questions, and Scalia followed with 30. Ginsburg is particularly interested in legal procedures, and she and Sotomayor dominated the questioning for much of the second hour.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday asked a panel of federal judges to delay their order that the state produce a plan to reduce prison crowding, saying he would take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court if they did not grant the request. In the motion filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the governor said the order should be delayed pending an appeal to be filed Thursday in the Supreme Court, arguing that the state would probably win in the nation's high court. The order was issued Aug. 4 by judges overseeing two lawsuits filed by inmates complaining of inadequate medical and mental health treatment.

A debate among Democrats over who should replace Justice David H. Souter on the Supreme Court began emerging Friday between those eager to return the court to its liberal era of 40 years ago and those who are wary of tacking too far to the left. But President Obama, who will choose the nominee, focused not on volatile ideological questions but on personal character, saying he wanted someone with "empathy" for "people's hopes and struggles."

U.S. District Court Judge Manuel L. Real, who has endured a rare public censure by the federal judiciary, the threat of impeachment and removal from several cases for questionable conduct, now faces demands to account for $5 million or more in apparently missing trust funds. Lawyers for rival Filipino groups laying claim to the seized assets of late Philippines Dictator Ferdinand Marcos have petitioned a federal appeals court to demand that Real provide a detailed accounting of $35.

In late 1979, Cesar Perales, the head of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, fielded an unusual request from Jose Cabranes, a federal judge and a leading figure in Latino legal circles: Would he place Sonia Sotomayor, a recent Yale Law School graduate, on his board? Perales normally tried to stock his board with people who had money or connections that could benefit the fund, the nation's most important Puerto Rican legal advocacy group. Sotomayor had neither.

If there is a Supreme Court candidate with inside connections, it is Elena Kagan, the Harvard Law School dean who was recently named U.S. solicitor general. Kagan, 49, is not widely known for legal writings or for taking a stand on a controversial issue. And she has never argued a case in the federal courts.

The chief judge at the Guantanamo Bay war crimes court Thursday rejected President Obama's call to halt the prosecution of terrorism suspects, ruling that a delay in the case of a Saudi accused in the Cole attack would "not serve the interests of justice." Army Col. James L. Pohl said the government's request to postpone until May the Feb. 9 arraignment of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri was "not reasonable."

After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts. The rightward shift on the federal bench is likely to prove a lasting legacy of the Bush presidency, since many of these judges -- including his two Supreme Court appointees -- may serve for two more decades.

For 10 years, Judge Alex E. Ferrer decided criminal cases in the Florida courts. Now, as "Judge Alex," he arbitrates petty disputes on his syndicated television show -- and his decisions are final. Sometimes, though, people who agree to arbitrate disputes do not like the result. Ferrer is one of them.

Television's "Judge Alex" and his former manager may be headed to arbitration after all. The Supreme Court gave a rough hearing Monday to a lawyer for Alex E. Ferrer, a former judge in Florida who rules on petty disputes in a syndicated television show, "Judge Alex," where his decisions are final. In 2002, Ferrer signed a contract with Arnold M. Preston, a Los Angeles lawyer who said he could help the judge find work in television. The contract said disputes would be handled through arbitration.