Supreme Court U S

Paul House, a Tennessee death row inmate, was just one vote away from possible execution when a divided Supreme Court said three years ago that new DNA evidence called for reopening his case. The Tennessee Supreme Court already had rejected his appeals, as had the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Even as President Obama flies to the University of Notre Dame this weekend to give a commencement speech that promises to be marked by bitter abortion protests, he will be grappling with one of the most critical decisions of his presidency. With a new poll out Friday showing that for the first time a majority of Americans call themselves "pro-life," the decision of whom to nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court has grown even more complex.

As President Obama is interviewing candidates for the Supreme Court, prospective nominees are being debated and dissected on blogs and in chat rooms. Conservative groups have posted campaign-style attack ads on YouTube. Counter-strikes are being launched by liberal groups. The prime targets are Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S.

In nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, President Obama tapped a veteran jurist whose humble upbringing and moderate-to-liberal record is unlikely to trigger an ideological battle in the Senate. Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Latino on the court. Legal experts said that her narrowly written opinions resembled those of the justice she would replace, David H. Souter. She has not ruled squarely on controversial issues such as gay rights or abortion.

The early White House story line on Sonia Sotomayor emphasizes her pragmatism and a cautious, measured approach to the law developed over a years-long climb from exceedingly modest circumstances to becoming the first Latino nominee to the Supreme Court. But an incident in the fall of 1978 illustrates another side of Sotomayor. Then a daring and assertive Yale University law student, she took a stand against a white-shoe Washington law firm that could have jeopardized her career.

Getting nominated to one of the rare openings on the U.S. Supreme Court requires an element of luck. Sonia Sotomayor appears to have had an abundance of it in recent months. On Tuesday, President Obama picked Sotomayor, 54, a federal appeals court judge from New York City, to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter. She also hit the jackpot Nov. 23 in a Florida casino, collecting $8,283 while gambling with her 81-year-old mother.

While some prominent conservative activists are accusing President Obama's Supreme Court nominee of racism, more Republicans are telling them to chill out and "grow up," or they risk damaging the party's chances of expanding its reach to women and Latinos.

When President Obama nominated federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, ethnic advocacy groups praised the selection of the first Latino to the nation's highest court. Yet some political opponents, such as Republican strategist Karl Rove, sought to downplay the nomination's significance by pointing out that Benjamin N. Cardozo, who served on the Supreme Court in the 1930s, was born to parents who claimed Portuguese descent. So did that make him the first Latino?

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.

One of the great things about Senate confirmations of Supreme Court justices is that they help us develop a long-term perspective on the workings of the highest tribunal in the land. For instance, when the political fight broke out over Sonia Sotomayor's assertion that a judge's ethnic and socioeconomic background might actually influence how he or she interprets the law, I cracked the history books to find support for that fairly obvious point.