Sonia Sotomayor

It did not take long after moving 60 miles from the ethnically diverse neighborhoods of the Bronx to the campus of Princeton University for Sonia Sotomayor to make it clear she was not happy with the way the overwhelmingly white, male school was run. In her sophomore year, Sotomayor walked into the office of university President William G. Bowen to demand more Latino faculty and students.

How well can Supreme Court votes be predicted by what justices say in oral arguments? The statistics hold up pretty well, and offer gloomy tidings for the Obama administration and its healthcare law. Reporters and analysts who cover the court approach predicting the justices in various ways - - some more confident in their judgment than others. But, as with so many things in life, researchers actually have studied the question. Their finding backs up a long-standing intuition of lawyers and experienced journalists alike: If a justice keeps interrupting you with questions, your side is in trouble.

In the Senate, freedom apparently comes with retirement. On Wednesday, three Republicans who are not seeking reelection next year broke with their party and announced they would support Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The most notable was Christopher S. Bond, the four-term senator from Missouri. Joining him in backing President Obama's first high court pick were Sens. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Mel Martinez of Florida. The Senate scheduled a vote for 3 p.m. today.

The Supreme Court, noting that virtually all criminal cases are settled through plea deals, has ruled for the first time that defendants have a right to competent advice from a lawyer on whether to accept an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. At a minimum, the court said, the defendant must be told of any formal offers from a prosecutor that would result in a favorable deal. The pair of 5-4 decisions handed down Wednesday could have a broad impact on the nation's criminal justice system because of the importance of plea deals.

Sonia Sotomayor became the 111th Supreme Court justice in the nation's history today, taking an oath to "administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich." Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. administered the oath in a ceremonial conference room at the Supreme Court before a small gathering of Sotomayor's family and friends, and a handful of White House aides who had worked on her confirmation. Roberts said the special swearing-in was arranged for a quiet morning so that Sotomayor could "begin her work as an associate justice without delay."

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has received the stamp of approval from the American Bar Assn. less than a week before her confirmation hearing begins on Capitol Hill. Sotomayor, a sitting federal appeals judge in New York, was deemed "well qualified" to serve as an associate justice on the high court by an ABA panel -- the highest rating the national attorney organization bestows. The White House was notified by a letter Tuesday to counsel Gregory Craig.

Acknowledging that it will be difficult to defeat the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Republicans in the Senate and beyond Capitol Hill are looking for other strategies to gain political yardage in the debate over President Obama's pick. They are spotlighting her decisions on wedge issues such as gun rights that could put pressure on Democrats from conservative states.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says she received nearly $1.2 million to write a memoir of her rise from a South Bronx housing project to the nation's highest court. Sotomayor reported the payment for the as-yet untitled book from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group in an annual report of personal finances, released Friday for the justice and her eight colleagues. Knopf revealed last July that Sotomayor had agreed to write the memoir, but the size of the advance had not been public.

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.

The first time Sonia Sotomayor was tested for diabetes, a lab technician sat her down in a big chair and assured her the needle in his hand would not hurt her. "I kept watching this big needle coming to my arm, and I looked at him and I said, 'Oh, it's going to hurt.' " The 7-year-old Sotomayor hopped off the chair and ran out of the hospital, hiding under a parked car, the hospital staff in pursuit. When they finally dragged her out to draw blood, "I was screaming so much I didn't feel the needle," she said, to knowing chuckles from the audience.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke out this week about her Type 1 diabetes, calling attention to the issue—a condition that as many as 3 million Americans know well. The pinpricks for blood, the glucose monitors, the insulin injections… Daily life isn’t easy, the Supreme Court justice told a gathering of children with diabetes. An online diabetic community would seem to agree. This from the blog Cure Moll : “When I was 10, my mom and I were used to shots, we knew the perfect amount of insulin for everything, from a small piece of pizza and cake at a birthday party to simply cereal for breakfast.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says she received nearly $1.2 million to write a memoir of her rise from a South Bronx housing project to the nation's highest court. Sotomayor reported the payment for the as-yet untitled book from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group in an annual report of personal finances, released Friday for the justice and her eight colleagues. Knopf revealed last July that Sotomayor had agreed to write the memoir, but the size of the advance had not been public.

When a Supreme Court seat first came open last year, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe offered some candid advice to one of his former students ? President Obama. Tribe was enthusiastic about Elena Kagan, but not the other front-runner, then- Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Her impact within the court "would be negative," Tribe told Obama in a letter on May 4, 2009. "Bluntly put, she's not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is, and her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire and simply add to the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas wing of the court," Tribe wrote, referring to four conservative justices.

"Do Not Open This Book" Michaela Muntean A pig is always telling you to go away because he is in the middle of writing a book. But you keep turning the pages. You have to read this book to see the end. I liked the book because it is funny. Reviewed by Jessica, 7 Welby Way Magnet West Hills "Max Malone Makes a Million" Charlotte Herman Max Malone and his friend Gordy are trying to make a million dollars. They sell lemonade, baseballs; they even have a backyard carnival.

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.

Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker who has called Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist, backed away from those comments Wednesday but continued to question whether her philosophy qualified her to become the first Latino on the high court. Gingrich had joined with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh in calling Sotomayor a racist after comments she made in 2001 comparing the judgment of Latinas and white men were widely circulated.

Defendants in criminal cases have a constitutional right to a competent lawyer's advice when deciding whether to accept a plea bargain, the Supreme Court ruled, providing a significant expansion of rights that could have a broad impact on the justice system. "Ours for the most part is a system of pleas, not a system of trials," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said for the majority in a pair of 5-4 decisions. Noting that about 97% of federal convictions and 94% of state convictions result from guilty pleas, Kennedy wrote that "in today's criminal justice system, the negotiation of a plea bargain, rather than the unfolding of a trial, is almost always the critical point for the defendant.