Judge Sotomayor on Supreme Court Justices Making Policy
National Review comes with the following quote from Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who will soon join the Supreme Court:
It involves three judges who go duck hunting. A duck flies overhead and the supreme court justice, before he picks up his shotgun, ponders about the policy implications of shooting the duck—how will the environment be affected, how will the duck hunting business be affected if he doesn’t shoot the duck, well by the time he finishes, the duck got away.
Another duck flies overhead, and the circuit judge goes through his five part test before pulling the trigger—1) he lifts the shotgun to his shoulder, 3) [sic] he sights the duck, 3) he measures the velocity of the duck’s flight, 4) he aims, and 5) he shoots—and, he misses.
Finally, another duck flies by, the district judge picks up the shotgun and shoots. The duck lands and the district judge picks it up, swings it over his shoulder and decides that he will let the other two judges explain what he did over dinner.
Ed Whelan comments:
So Sotomayor thinks an unobjectionable and apt description of what is most distinctive about the role of Supreme Court justices in making decisions involves is “ponder[ing] about … policy implications.”
Eugene Volokh wrote quite a thoughtful, in-depth reaction to both Whelan’s post and Sotomayor’s speech. Be sure to read it. He touches on some very important issues.
Sotomayor truly is a conservative’s, and dare I say moderate’s, nightmare.
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It was a joke. Removing a single joke on the 10th page of a speech is minimally instructive at best. I notice that you have spent no time at all on her long judicial record which is far more instructive. Why is that?
Did you ask that of the Liberals during Bush’s term Jeb?