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| Supreme court to hear cases on gun rights and juvenile crime |
| By guardian.co.uk |
| Published: 10/06/2009 |
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The United States supreme court today opens a session during which it will hear cases cases touching on some of the most important legal and social issues in American life, including gun rights, separation of church and state and lifetime prison sentences for juveniles. The new session is the first to include Sonia Sotomayor, president Barack Obama's appointee to the high court and its first Hispanic justice. Sotomayor replaces a relatively liberal justice, David Souter, and is not expected to change the court's ideological make-up. The court is evenly divided between liberals and conservatives, with moderate conservative justice Anthony Kennedy the deciding vote on many high profile cases. But court watchers warn that any new justice alters the dynamics among the other eight justices, making it difficult to anticipate Sotomayor's impact. "People change when they get on the supreme court," said Tom Goldstein, a law instructor at Harvard and Stanford universities who has argued 21 cases before the court. Goldstein said Sotomayor, who was a prosecutor in New York City earlier in her career, may be more inclined than Souter to rule against criminal defendants. Meanwhile, she will also bring to bear her life experience as a Latina woman. Read More. |
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