the reversal of sotomayor on ricci does NOT prove sotomayor is unqualified to sit on the US suprreme court.

rather, its the fact that sotomayor has been reversed 60% OF THE TIME that is troubling <link>

she could have had better results just by flipping a coin.

Why is agreement with the current court a qualification to be on the future court?

That isn't really a relevant statistic. The vast majority of cases the Supreme Court hears, it reverses. (in think in the last 3 years it's been something in the neighborhood of 70-70% each term). That is becuase the Supreme Court generally grants cert on cases that it wants to overturn, or cases where the law is unsettled or circuit courts disagree. In the latter case, two or more circuit courts may disagree on an issue, and the Supreme Court takes the case to settle the question. In this example, one of the circuit courts necessarily has to be overturned -- does this make them unqalified? What about where 5 circuits have gone one way and 4 the other way? If the Supreme Court takes one of these appeals to determine an issue and sides with the 4, does this make the judges on the 5 other cirucits unqualified? If out of 100 cases decided, 40 are appealed, the SC hears one, and reverses, that is a 100% reversal rate. Does that make the judge unqualified?

Sorry, that's 70-75%

Of course it does not make her unqualified. We could, e.g. assume that she is at least as qualified as the dissenting judges.

The problem lies in my opinion elsewhere. She, handling the case as she did in appelate court, either ignored or didn't notice the valid constitutional issues.

This is bad regardless what her opinion on the outcome is.

Actually I think the case reflects less upon Sotomayer and more upon those who support her. I do believe that her reversed opinion on this case reflects what her supporters want to become the majority opinion in the Supreme Court. That is the real debate not Sotomayer.

She, handling the case as she did in appelate court, either ignored or didn't notice the valid constitutional issues.

The Supreme Court decided the case on statutory, not constitutional grounds. Justice

Kennedy said:

Petitioners are entitled to summary judgment on theirTitle VII claim, and we therefore need not decide the underlying constitutional question.

As has already been mentioned herein, Judge Sotomeyer's reversal rate is fairly typical. Moreover, there are certain kinds of reversals (such as when the Supreme Court decides to overturn its own precedent) that should not reflect on a judge at all.

That article cited earlier about her reversal rate states she has written 370 opinion, and SCOTUS has reversed 3... I'm no mathematician, but I'm pretty sure 3/370 is slightly less than 60%.

Not that being reversed 3 out of 5 times bears at all on her appointment either; I'm just pointing out a bit of a flaw.

smslaw: The Supreme Court decided the case on statutory, not constitutional grounds

That is of course correct. After deliberations, and in spirit of preferring narrow-scope decisions, SC decided that it is sufficient to use Title VII arguments. However, when you read the summary judgment (not talking about Scalia dissent here), you will notice the big 'elephant in the room', that will be addressed if only configuration of a disparate-impact case changes.

Sotomayor, unfortunately, cut the corners here, not noticing interesting issues in this case.

Sotomayor's dismissal percentage is actually lower than that of other judges at her level. But you aren't one to concern yourself with facts when it gets in the way of your spin.

"Her level' is the judge who is promoted to the Supreme Court, not just any random judge...

"Her level' is the judge who is promoted to the Supreme Court, not just any random judge...

And how does her rate of cases being overturned compare to past Supreme Court justices? I believe she has a far better rate than either Alito or Scalia did.

or you know so?

I know so. I read an article that completely debunked this claim about Sotomayor's rate of being overturned by the Supreme Court. I'm just too lazy and have too many other things to do than to try and track down my source. So I used the term 'believe' instead.\

I think the article was on salon.com, but I could be wrong about that.