Ricci Shenanigans

Conn Carroll / July 14, 2009

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is currently questioning Judge Sonia Sotomayor about her Ricci v. DeStefano decision. Yesterday at Bench Memos, Heritage fellow Robert Alt blogged about Sotomayor’s role in the case:

Ed Whelan has rightly referred to Judge Sotomayor’s dismissive procedural treatment of the Ricci case—in which the panel simply affirmed on the basis of the district court opinion in a single paragraph instead of actually issuing a substantive opinion—as “shenanigans.” Stuart Taylor has a must read commentary explaining just how this procedural maneuver very nearly shielded the case from Supreme Court review. Because summary orders are not circulated to all circuit judges in the same way as full opinions, Clinton appointee Judge Cabranes only found out about the Ricci case by reading about it in a local newspaper. Given the importance of the issues, he sought review of the decision by the full (en banc)court. As Taylor notes, (more…)