re: #689 turn

Is it safe to say a majority of her decisions have been reversed? If so that means she interprets the law incorrectly more often than not which is troubling and a perfectly legitimate reason by itself to reject her. But that ain’t going to happen.

It doesn’t sound as though that’s a safe thing to say at all. Apparently, these “reversal rates” are being constructed through a serious cherry-picking process. What started as an “80% reversal rate” is now apparently being based on some rather unique counting methods, and is also based only on reversals that have occurred on appeals - which are certainly those most likely to be reversed, after all. Whenever anyone talks about reversal rates, however, the metric is based on number of cases reversed divided by number of cases actually heard - the divisor is never the number appealed. It’s an attempt to construct a high percentage out of thin air.

Questions: How many cases has she heard while serving in her present position? How many of those have been appealed? How many of those have been reversed on appeal? The last number divided by the first is her rate of reversal; the second divided by the first is her rate of appeal; the third divided by the second is meaningless bullshit. Also: why hasn’t this bizarre metric - rate of reversal measured against cases appealed - EVER been used as a gauge of success, failure or any other measure of judicial fitness?

Sorry, but as much as I’ve tried to be patient, this just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. It’s an utterly meaningless metric that has never been applied to anyone else, ever, because it doesn’t measure anything of interest. If this is going to be the basis of an “attack” on Sotormayor, prepare for a royal screwing that will reverberate for a couple of decades, if not longer.