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    Janet W. Battaile

    Editor

    Sotomayor Tougher on Crime Than Any of Her Colleagues

    Posted:
    07/9/09
    Filed Under:Supreme Court
    131 Comments  + 
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    Conservative critics of Judge Sonia Sotomayor have had plenty to say about what they consider her liberal judicial record. But would it make any difference if they knew that as a New York trial judge, she was tougher on crime -- handing down more and longer sentences -- than any of her colleagues in the same district?

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    As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to open hearings Monday on Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court, her supporters are bracing for tough scrutiny of her record, both as an appellate judge on he U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and as a trial judge, during the 1990s, in the Southern District of New York.
    Since her nomination in May, legal groups, women's groups, civil rights organizations and others have pored over her court opinions and speeches, trying to ascertain her leanings or prove that she is partial to minorities, particularly the Latino community from which she hails and for which she has been a lifelong advocate. If she is confirmed, as is expected, she will become the first Hispanic on the high court.
    Until now, however, no one has looked at her trial court sentencing record, primarily because the Justice Department information is hard to access and involves thousands of prosecutions.
    A new study by TRAC, an organization that compiles and analyzes government statistics obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), has found that Sotomayor was not only more likely than other judges in the Southern District to send a criminal to prison, but that she also gave longer sentences. This was true whether for drug offenders (who comprised 27 percent of the district's cases) or for white-collar criminals (20 percent of cases). The record shows she was considerably tougher in her sentencing of the latter than was typical in her district.
    TRAC, or Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, looked at 7,750 prosecutions handled by the 52 judges who served in the Southern District during the period that Sotomayor was there, from 1993 to 1998, and compared her sentencing record with that of her colleagues.
    The Southern District, which covers Manhattan, Westchester and several other neighboring counties, handles an array of criminal cases, from financial fraud to illegal drugs to immigration violations and organized crime. When Sotomayor's sentences were compared with those imposed districtwide, real differences were discerned. For white-collar criminals, for instance, the other district judges sent 43 percent to prison, while Sotomayor sent 52 percent. While the other judges imposed sentences of six months or longer on only one in three of those convicted, Sotomayor gave six months or longer to nearly half -- 48 percent.
    For convicted white-collar offenders who got significant time in prison, the disparity was even more pronounced. Among all the judges in the district, sentences of two years or more were given to 12 percent of offenders. For Sotomayor, such sentences went to roughly one out of four offenders – 24 percent -- double the average rate.
    For drug offenders, whose sentences were a great deal harsher than for white-collar criminals, Sotomayor's colleagues sentenced 79 percent to at least six months of prison time, while she gave such sentences to 85.5 percent. For remaining prosecutions involving smaller numbers of many different types of crimes, the pattern was the same. Sotomayor gave sentences of six months or longer to 56 percent of offenders, while her fellow judges did so in only 46 percent of their cases.
    The sentencing differences were most evident in immigration cases, TRAC said, but added they were only suggestive. That's because there were only 385 prosecutions for the entire district during the period and just 14 in Sotomayor's court. Nevertheless, 91 percent of offenders received prison time from Sotomayor, while only 63 percent did from her colleagues.
    TRAC's co-director, David Burnham, an investigative writer and former New York Times reporter, said the data make comparative analysis of judicial decisions possible for the first time.
    "Because of the way the information about individual cases has long been collected and stored by the courts, it is virtually impossible to make judge-by-judge comparisons about what they do,'' he said. "This first-of-its kind examination of Judge Sotomayor's record demonstrates the possibility of a whole new kind of judicial accountability.''
    Whether this makes any difference to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee is likely dubious. They will be focusing on anything to prove their contention that she is an activist judge who favors minorities and is out of the mainstream – an argument not likely to prevail.



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    Janet W. Battaile

    Jan Battaile worked as an editor in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times for 20 years... more

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