Early Life
Sonia Maria Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954, in New York City’s South Bronx. She is the elder of two children born to Puerto Rican parents, Juan and Celina Baez Sotomayor. Sotomayor’s family was low-income; Celina worked as a nurse at a methadone clinic, and Juan was a tool and die worker. Sotomayor was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of seven, necessitating daily insulin injections. When she was nine years old, her father died after a heart attack.
Celina struggled to raise her children as a single parent after Juan died. She put a “almost fanatical emphasis” on higher education, pushing the children to become fluent in English and making great sacrifices to buy a set of encyclopedias that would provide them with suitable research materials for school.
Sotomayor had desired to be a judge since she was in elementary school. She became interested in the legal system after watching an episode of the television show Perry Mason. Sotomayor subsequently told The New York Times that when a prosecutor on the show said he didn’t mind losing when a defendant turned out to be innocent, she “made the quantum leap: If that was the prosecutor’s job, then the guy who made the decision to dismiss the case was the judge.” That’s what I planned to be.”
Education
Sotomayor attended Princeton University after graduating from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx in 1972. Her standardized test scores were not up to Princeton’s typical requirements, and she would not have been in if it hadn’t been for affirmative action. Sotomayor stated in her memoir, My Beloved World, published in 2013, that her experience exemplifies the goal of affirmative action: “to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.”
in first, Sotomayor felt overwhelmed in university. She sought assistance after obtaining dismal marks on her first midterm assignment, enrolling in additional English and writing classes. She also became quite involved with the Puerto Rican student organizations on school, such as Acción Puertorriquea and the Third World Center. She described the gatherings as “an anchor I needed to ground myself in that new and different world.” She also assisted the university’s punishment committee, where she began to hone her legal talents.
Sotomayor’s efforts were rewarded when she graduated with honors in 1976. She was also awarded the Pyne Prize, Princeton’s top academic honor for undergraduates. Sotomayor entered Yale Law School the same year, where she worked as an editor for the Yale Law Journal. She earned her juris doctorate in 1979 and was admitted to the bar in 1980.
Early Legal Career
Sotomayor began her career as an associate district attorney in Manhattan, where she worked as a trial lawyer under District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Sotomayor was in charge of prosecuting crimes involving robbery, assault, murder, police brutality, and child pornography. She had a large caseload and methodically prepared for her cases, frequently working 15-hour days.
Sotomayor began her legal career in 1984 as a solo practitioner, Sotomayor & Associates, out of her Brooklyn apartment, before joining the commercial litigation company Pavia & Harcourt, where she specialized in intellectual property disputes. In 1988, she advanced from associate to partner in the firm.
Sotomayor also served on the boards of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the Maternity Center Association while climbing the political ladder. Sotomayor’s pro gratis work at these institutions piqued the interest of New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who recommended her for a position on the federal bench.
Federal and Appellate Judgeships
President George H.W. Bush nominated Sotomayor for U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York City in 1992, with the vocal support of Moynihan and Senator Ted Kennedy. On August 11, 1992, the Senate unanimously confirmed her. She became the Southern District’s youngest judge, the first Hispanic federal judge in New York history, and the first Puerto Rican woman to serve on the federal bench.
President Bill Clinton nominated Sotomayor for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on her 43rd birthday in 1997, but delays and political maneuverings delayed her Senate confirmation until the following year. She served as a judge for about 11 years, hearing appeals in over 3,000 cases and writing approximately 380 majority opinions. According to the New York Times, she has “a reputation for asking tough questions at oral arguments and for being sometimes brusque and curt with lawyers who were not prepared to answer them.”
Sotomayor began teaching law as an adjunct professor at New York University in 1998 and at Columbia Law School in 1999, in addition to her job on the Court of Appeals. She has also received honorary law degrees from Herbert H. Lehman College, Princeton University, and Brooklyn Law School, and she has served on the Princeton University Board of Trustees.
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Supreme Court Nomination
Following the retirement of Justice David Souter, President Barack Obama announced his nomination of Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court on May 26, 2009. Following the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006, Senate Democrats had previously mentioned Sotomayor as a suitable nominee for President George W. Bush, however that appointment ultimately went to Samuel Alito.
Obama named Sotomayor a “inspiring woman” and said her appointment to the court would be “another important step towards realizing the ideal that is etched above its entrance: equal justice under the law.” The nomination process was not without controversy, with notable conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Newt Gingrich labeling Sotomayor a “racist.”Former President George H.W. Bush spoke out against the remarks. Sotomayor was eventually confirmed by the Senate in August 2009 by a 68-31 majority, becoming the third woman and first Latina Supreme Court justice in the country’s history.
Sotomayor was regarded one of the most ideologically liberal of the nine Supreme Court justices when she was appointed, but because she replaced another liberal justice, she did not shift the court body’s perceived balance of power. According to the New York Times, Sotomayor sided with fellow liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer around 90% of the time.
Major Rulings
Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision in J. D. B. v. North Carolina in 2011, which determined that a child’s age is important for Miranda warning reasons when deciding whether a person is in police custody. She wrote: “Officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age. They simply need the common sense to know that a 7-year-old is not a 13-year-old and neither is an adult.”
Sotomayor was in the majority on many noteworthy opinions in 2012, including a 5-4 decision that upheld most of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. She was also a member of the 5-3 majority in Arizona v. United States, which overturned significant elements of Arizona SB 1070, a severe and contentious anti-immigrant bill championed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.
In King v. Burwell, Sotomayor was one of six judges who upheld a key component of the Affordable Care Act. The judgment allows the federal government to continue giving subsidies to Americans who buy health insurance through exchanges, whether they are run by states or the federal government.
Sotomayor was credited with being a driving influence in the decision, having given cautionary arguments against the eventual repeal of the legislation. In the same month, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Obergefell v. Hodges, legalizing same-s** marriage in all 50 states. Sotomayor joined Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kegan, and Anthony Kennedy in voting in favor of the decision, while Justices Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas voted in opposition.
Personal Life
Sotomayor married her high school sweetheart, biologist and biotech patent lawyer Kevin Noonan, in 1976. Seven years later, they split amicably and had no children.
Sotormayor enjoys riding on trails and on local roads in Washington, D.C., and has stated that dance is her favorite art form. Sotomayor, an ardent reader, credited the Nancy Drew series for helping her find female empowerment as a youngster, and she has also mentioned Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as formative literature for her.