Quinn: Sotomayor "has been overturned more times than a Mexican 18-wheeler"

Previously:

MYTH: Supreme Court reversal of Ricci an "extraordinary rebuke" for Sotomayor

In a May 27 editorial, The Washington Times stated that if the Supreme Court were to reverse the 2nd Circuit decision in Ricci -- which the High Court subsequently did by a 5-4 margin -- "It would be an extraordinary rebuke were a current nominee to be overruled on such a controversial case by the very justices she is slated to join." But it is a myth that the Ricci reversal represents an "extraordinary rebuke" for Sotomayor. Indeed, the Supreme Court reversed at least four decisions by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court in which Samuel Alito either wrote or joined the majority opinion, and Alito also received a "rebuke" by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he replaced, regarding his dissent in the abortion-rights case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Furthermore, as an appeals court judge, Chief Justice John Roberts was a member of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which, in its July 2005 unanimous ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, allowed a military commission to try Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Guantánamo Bay detainee. Roberts was confirmed as chief justice several months later, in September 2005. Then, in 2006, the Supreme Court reversed the circuit court's decision on a 5-3 ruling.

MYTH: Sotomayor's Supreme Court reversal rate is "high"

In a May 27 article headlined, "Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court," The Washington Times reported that "[t]hree of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed" and then uncritically quoted Conservative Women for America president Wendy Wright saying that Sotomayor's reversal rate was "high." Similarly, on May 26, Congressional Quarterly Today uncritically quoted (subscription required) Wendy Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, claiming that Sotomayor "has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court." In fact, contrary to the myth that it is unusual for the Supreme Court to reverse federal appellate court decisions, data compiled by SCOTUSblog since 2004 show that the Supreme Court has reversed more than 67 percent of the federal appeals court cases it considered each year, except 2007, when it reversed federal appeals court cases 61 percent of the time.