Judges

The question dominating the hearing today and Wednesday for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will not be whether she will win confirmation, but whether Senate Republicans can fix her in the public's mind as a biased judge unlikely to follow the law. The possibility of lively exchanges became clear Monday with the opening of the Sotomayor hearing, even as Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee acknowledged that President Obama's nominee was almost certain to win confirmation.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor parried tough questions Tuesday from the Senate Judiciary Committee about how race and gender affect a judge's views on the law. Republicans focused on a single ruling from her 17 years on the federal bench involving a group of white firefighters claiming reverse discrimination. Legal experts said the exhaustive discussion of the New Haven, Conn.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor proclaimed Tuesday that she would not let ethnic or gender biases influence her decisions on the court, during a grueling round of questioning from skeptical Republicans who vowed to pursue their tough examination of her record today. After watching Sotomayor fend off their best questions, opposing senators on the Judiciary Committee all but conceded that her confirmation was certain.

Employers vs. labor? Airlines vs. passengers? Investors vs. companies? When it comes to business lawsuits, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor can be hard to pigeonhole. Although Sotomayor's opponents paint her as an activist with a liberal bent, many legal experts say her record is far from that of an ideologue on business issues. In 1995, as a U.S. district judge, she favored the Major League Baseball players against the owners.

A former Los Angeles County Superior Court family law commissioner was publicly censured Wednesday and barred from taking on future judicial assignments for failing to decide a number of cases within the time required by law. According to the state Commission on Judicial Performance, which investigates misconduct by judges, one litigant complained to court officials that commissioner Ann Dobbs delayed ruling on a case for nearly five years.

Frank Ricci -- the named plaintiff in a lawsuit that Republicans have made Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's albatross -- said at her confirmation hearing Thursday that "Americans have the right to go into our federal courts to have their cases judged based on the Constitution and our laws, not on politics or personal feelings." The white firefighter and 19 of his colleagues sued the city of New Haven, Conn.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor maneuvered through three days of an often-antagonistic confirmation hearing by portraying herself as a legal mechanic who would stick to precedent and never "make law." But in doing so she revealed almost nothing about the philosophy that would guide her on the high court.

Two months ago, Sonia Sotomayor's Latino heritage was viewed as an overwhelming asset. And though history will be made if she becomes the Supreme Court's newest justice, there wasn't much talk about that during three days of grueling testimony last week. For some, her confirmation hearings left a bitter taste.

A Los Angeles federal judge took the highly unusual step of closing a two-day trial this week in a case involving the 2005 prison killing of Jewish Defense League activist Earl Krugel. Constitutional scholars and press-freedom advocates deemed the broad secrecy accorded the trial by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson perplexing -- and a likely violation of the 1st Amendment. Wilson issued a protective order covering U.S.

Republicans' unflinching opposition Tuesday to Judge Sonia Sotomayor drew a partisan line in the sand, signaling that any future Obama nominees to the Supreme Court are unlikely to win significant GOP support even if they have solid legal credentials and moderate records.