In a minor case, part of an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor was rejected by Justice Clarence Thomas.
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Justices Appear Skeptical of Anticorruption Law (December 9, 2009) The case concerned whether federal trial-court rulings concerning the lawyer-client privilege may be appealed right away. Justice Sotomayor, with methodical reasoning and a formal writing style, said no.
“Permitting parties to undertake successive, piecemeal appeals of all adverse attorney-client rulings,” she wrote, “would unduly delay the resolution of district court litigation and needlessly burden the courts of appeals.”
Justice Sotomayor said that result was dictated by sound policy and was consistent with a law governing appeals.
The decision was unanimous, but Justice Clarence Thomas declined to join the part of Justice Sotomayor’s opinion discussing why the cost of allowing immediate appeals outweighs the possibility that candid communications between lawyers and their clients might be chilled.
In a concurrence, Justice Thomas took a swipe at his new colleague, saying she had “with a sweep of the court’s pen” substituted “value judgments” and “what the court thinks is a good idea” for the text of a federal law.
The federal government had urged the court to rule as it did but asked the court to exclude appeals of claims of the state secrets privilege and other governmental privileges from the sweep of its ruling. Justice Sotomayor obliged with a footnote saying “we express no view on that issue.”
In an otherwise dry opinion, Justice Sotomayor did introduce one new and politically charged term into the Supreme Court lexicon.
Justice Sotomayor’s opinion in the case, Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter, No. 08-678, marked the first use of the term “undocumented immigrant,” according to a legal database. The term “illegal immigrant” has appeared in a dozen decisions.
Value Judgements is a term of art and not meant to undermine Federal Law Justice Thomas!
ReplyDeleteJustice Sotomayor's ruling yesterday, also introduce a new term "Undocumented Immigrant" as opposed the the old offensive term "Illegal Alien". Although I disagree with the Ruling of the Court which denies immediate appeal of cases based on attorney client privilege, I do not agree with the tone or Justice Thomas's Retort of Justice Sotomayor's use of the term Value Judgment. Justice Thomas ultimately concurred with the Ruling of Justice Sotomayor but he could not hold back his need to insult and try to put Judge Sotomayor in her place. He should be more concerned about the harmful effect on attorney client privilege instead of engaging a new Justice in a cat fight. This is very disappointing, because I think both Justices were wrong and did not stand up for attorney client privilege, and the war of words is all that the public is going to see when they remember this case