Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

My approach to deciding cases is I look at the law, I look at the facts, and I do my best to apply the law to the facts and make a decision based on the law and the facts.

The court has to decide which of our approved desires has the better claim, right here, right now, and a court has to do more than read fairly when it makes this kind of choice.

Lawsuits are rare and catastrophic experiences for the vast majority of men, and even when the catastrophe ensues, the controversy relates most often not to the law, but to the facts. In countless litigations, the law Is so clear that judges have no discretion.

Mr. Justice, there are unanswerable questions in this case.

Judges in our systems decide on concrete facts and not abstract issues.

Juries are not qualified to judge questions of law, but they are very capable of judging questions of fact.

A judge is supposed to be able to make a decision, and when you make a decision, very often one party - and very often both - are a little disappointed.

Well, I - all cases to me have interest. Every case is important to somebody, the people litigating that case. But the most difficult case for me is the case where one person says a, the other person says b, and you just don't know for certain who is not telling you the truth.

The work of deciding cases goes on every day in hundreds of courts throughout the land. Any judge, one might suppose, would find it easy to describe the process which he had followed a thousand times and more. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I don't think the law exists to arrive at the truth. If it did, we wouldn't have exclusionary rules, we wouldn't have presumptions of innocence, we wouldn't have proof beyond reasonable doubt. There's an enormous difference between the role of truth in law and the role of truth in science. In law, truth is one among many goals.

I certainly have a pretty settled pattern at this point of what I do substantively in terms of reviewing briefs, record materials, cases, etc.

The prosecutor, who is supposed to carry the burden of proof, really is an author.

For every criminal case, the judge must construct a perfect syllogism: the major premise must be the general law; the minor premise, whether or not the action in question is in compliance with the law; and the conclusion, acquittal or punishment.

You can, if you wish, think of it like the universe: Each case is a sun, and all the judges, lawyers and administrative personnel represent planets revolving around the case in fixed orbit, never getting closer.

there shall be in every court, three justices or commissioners, who shall sit with the twelve men of the neighborhood, with them to hear all causes, and to assist the said twelve men of the neighborhood in case of law; and that they the said justices shall pronounce such judgment as they shall receive from, and be directed by the said twelve men in whom only the judgment resides, and not otherwise.

Scientists want to know the evidence behind a statement; they want reproducible tests and verifiable facts. There is a big difference in the thought process of a trial lawyer who is interested not in what's true but what he can convince a jury is true.

While I sat in family court, I probably heard 20 or 25,000 cases. And I am sure, during the course of those cases, there were cases that I probably would've decided differently had I had either more time or been able to explore more. But all you can do as a judge is really give a case your best effort.

I think whether you are a judge on my court or whether you are a judge on a court of appeals or any court, and lawyers too - and if you're interested in law yourself, you'll be in the same situation - you have a text that isn't clear. If the text is clear, you follow the text. If the text isn't clear, you have to work out what it means. And that requires context.

Our entire legal system bets a great deal on the proposition that this ‘adversary’ system is the least imperfect way to develop all the truth: the corollary is that we must look on partisanship not as an evil but as a part of the system's working.

The Supreme Court only hears the cases that it wants to hear.

What I learned from clerking for Judge Guido Calabresi and for Justice Steven Breyer was that there is no position, regardless of how wrong you think it is, that does not have some arguments in its favor, and you have to find them. And then, no matter how right your own position is, you must look for the weaknesses in that they are always there. You must be willing to find them and possibly change your approach or your mind on the subject.

Rule of law is based on probable cause.

I always ask my law clerks, in addition to reading all the briefs, including all the amici briefs, that if there's a good law review article, they should bring it to me.

A judge sometimes must release a criminal. He doesn't like it, she doesn't like it, but the law requires it. And the context of an election in which you are "soft on crime" betrays a misunderstanding of the judicial process and a misunderstanding of the Constitution.

I regard myself as a grand juror waiting to hear the evidence from the prosecutor, the Judiciary Committee. I'm diametrically opposed to Nixon and everything he stands for, but I want to see the evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors first.