Sonia Sotomayor Death Penalty: "Racist," Violates "Humanist" Thinking

Did Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, fail to disclose to the Senate Judiciary committee that she has argued that the death penalty is "racist," and that it violates the "humanist" thinking of society?

Sonia Sotomayor

According to this report, she did just that in a memorandum in 1981. So perhaps there are two issues here: a) she didn't disclose this written opinion as required and 2) she see the death penalty as "racist" and against "humanist thinking."

JCN (Judicial Confirmation Network) Counsel Wendy Long sent a letter Friday to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and members of the committee arguing that Sotomayor had not properly complied with this requirement because she had not submitted the 1981 memo on capital punishment. “It is . . . clear that (Sotomayor) has omitted controversial material from her past in which she asserts that '[c]apital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society' and advocated public opposition to restoring the death penalty in New York state,” Long wrote to the committee

The memo is to the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and is from the Task Force of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund which included Sotomayor. The memo rendered an opinion on a Bill to Restore the Death Penalty in New York State. The memo says the Task Force "reviewed major literature about the issue of the death penalty and found there was an impressive array of highly respectable organizations which have taken a public position opposed to restoration of the death penalty. A summary of the memo's points supporting the "public position" of opposition are as follows. Note that some is word-for-word and some is my paraphrase. Follow the link here to a pdf of the memo or to the transcription:

1) The death penalty is final and eliminates all possibility of reform of the offender. The possibility of mistaken identity is discussed. 2) The evidence for capital punishment as a deterrent of crime is unconvincing. 3) Capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society. A breakdown by percentage of ethnicity's on death row is given. 4) The problem of crime and violence in American society is so complex, it is unreasonable to think that capital punishment will result in preventing it or diminishing it. 5) Our present perspective on the meaning of our values in the Judeo-christian tradition, and the state of humanistic thinking in the world judge capital punishment as a violation of those values. 6) It is counter-productive [sic] we inflict death on the offender to manifest our opposition to his inflicting death on another. 7) It creates inhuman psychological burdens for the offender and is/her family. 8) It becomes involved in lengthy legal procedures, and makes more difficult a process of more rapid enforcement of more benign forms of punishment. The memo ends with: In view of the broad consensus of representative religious and civic organizations, and in view of the rationale presented in opposition to Capital Punishment, the Task Force recommends that the Fund take a public position in opposition to the restoration of the Death Penalty in New York State.

The memo is signed by three persons, one of which is Sonia Sotomayor. I'm not an attorney but when I look at the 8 "arguments" above no judicial scholarship. No. 4 is pathetic. No. 5 plainly shows her globalist viewpoint. The only issue that holds water is the issue of a wrongly accused person.