Sotomayor Never Released Any of My Clients!

As the right wing nuts prepare their battle plan against Second Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court, one trenchant fact should be deployed in her defense: She has never, ever released any of my clients. That should mollify the right (and a good chunk of the center, as well).

Oh, I have given her many chances. Last December, I gave her a chance to release a defendant who was convicted of murdering a government witness (car bomb) to prevent the witness from testifying against him in a cocaine prosecution. The government used the dead witness's testimony against my client. I argued that the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment prohibited such use because my client could not confront the (dead) witness against him.

I lost. Judge Sotomayor dug back into the history of English and early American Confrontation Clause jurisprudence (which is what judges are supposed to do), and wrote a lengthy and scholarly footnote which basically said, "Nice try, Kuby." Just the latest in a line of cases where she told me, "No." Still love ya, Judge.