JCN Letter

Dear Senators:

Unfortunately, even with the additional submissions of June 15, 2009, Judge Sotomayor’s answers and document production to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire – and, accordingly, to the American people – are still incomplete.

Question 12(b) calls for Judge Sotomayor to disclose (and indeed, to provide four copies of) “any reports, memoranda, or policy statements you prepared or contributed to the preparation of on behalf of any bar association, committee, conference, or organization of which you were or are a member or in which you have participated . . . .” and to include any such documents produced by any working group of such organizations “even where you did not contribute to it.”

A first read through Judge Sonia Sotomayor's U.S. Senate questionnaire for her Supreme Court nomination raises more questions than it answers. It is already clear that she has omitted controversial material from her past in which she asserts that "[c]apital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society" and advocates public opposition to restoring the death penalty in New York state.