索尼娅·索托马约尔

索尼娅·玛丽亚·索托马约尔（西班牙语：Sonia Maria Sotomayor，西班牙语：[ˈsonja sotomaˈʝoɾ]，1954年6月25日—），是美国最高法院大法官。她于2009年6月1日被贝拉克·奥巴马总统提名，自2009年8月8日起任职。索托马约尔是最高法院的第一位西班牙裔和拉丁裔成员。

生平

出生在纽约市布朗克斯区，父母都是波多黎各人。她的父亲在她9岁时去世，她随后由母亲抚养。索托马约尔1976年以最优异的成绩毕业于普林斯顿大学，1979年在耶鲁大学法学院获得法学博士学位，曾任《耶鲁法律杂志》编辑。她在纽约担任了四年半的地方助理检察官，然后于1984年开始私人执业。她在波多黎各法律辩护和教育基金、纽约州抵押贷款机构和纽约市竞选财务委员会的董事会中发挥了积极作用。

1991年11月27日，索托马约尔被老布什总统提名为美国纽约南区联邦地区法院法官，并于1992年得到确认。1997年6月25日，她被比尔·克林顿总统提名为美国联邦第二巡回上诉法院法官。她的提名受到参议院共和党多数派的阻挠，但她最终在1998年10月2日得到确认。在第二巡回法院，索托马约审理了3000多起案件的上诉，撰写了约380份意见书。索托马约尔曾在纽约大学法学院和哥伦比亚法学院任教。

在戴维·苏特法官退休后，贝拉克·奥巴马总统在2009年6月1日提名索托马约尔为最高法院大法官。2009年8月6日获美国参议院68票赞成、31票反对，通过任命。她是美国最高法院第111任法官，同时亦为美国最高法院第三位女性法官。在法庭中，当意见泾渭分明时，索托马约尔一直支持自由派势力。在最高法院任职期间，索托马约尔一直关注被告的权利，呼吁改革刑事司法系统，并就种族、性别和族裔身份问题提出了慷慨激昂的异议。

Sonia Maria Sotomayor (Spanish: [ˈsonja sotomaˈʝoɾ]; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since August 8, 2009. She is the third woman U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, New York City, to Puerto Rican-born parents. Her father died when she was nine years old, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. She graduated with high honors from Princeton University in 1976 and received her Juris Doctor in 1979 from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for four and a half years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

President George H. W. Bush nominated Sotomayor to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991; she was confirmed in 1992. In 1997, President Bill Clinton nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That appointment was slowed by the Republican majority in the United States Senate because of its concerns that the position might lead to a Supreme Court nomination, but she was confirmed in 1998. On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions. Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School.

In May 2009, President Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court following Justice David Souter's retirement. Her nomination was confirmed by the Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31. While on the Court, Sotomayor has supported the informal liberal bloc of justices when they divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines. During her Supreme Court tenure, Sotomayor has been identified with concern for the rights of criminal defendants and criminal justice reform, as demonstrated in majority opinions such as J. D. B. v. North Carolina and Glossip v. Oklahoma. She is also known for her impassioned dissents on issues of race and ethnic identity, including in Schuette v. BAMN, Utah v. Strieff, and Trump v. Hawaii.

Early life

Sotomayor was born in the New York City borough of the Bronx. Her father was Juan Sotomayor (c. 1921–1964), from the area of Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and her mother was Celina Báez (1927–2021), an orphan from Santa Rosa in Lajas, a rural area on Puerto Rico's southwest coast.

The two left Puerto Rico separately, met, and married during World War II after Celina served in the Women's Army Corps. Juan Sotomayor had a third-grade education, did not speak English, and worked as a tool and die worker; Celina Báez worked as a telephone operator and then a practical nurse. Sonia's younger brother, Juan Sotomayor, became a physician and university professor in the Syracuse, New York, area.

Sotomayor was raised Catholic and grew up in Puerto Rican communities in the South Bronx and East Bronx; she has called herself a "Nuyorican". The family lived in a South Bronx tenement before moving in 1957 to the well-maintained, racially and ethnically mixed, working-class Bronxdale Houses housing project in Soundview (which has over time been thought as part of both the East Bronx and South Bronx). In 2010, the Bronxdale Houses were renamed in her honor. Her relative proximity to Yankee Stadium led to her becoming a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees. The extended family got together frequently and regularly visited Puerto Rico during summers.