Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor’s rulings on religious issues

University of Toledo law professor Howard M. Friedman has compiled a list of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s rulings on religion clause issues at his blog, Religion Clause.   Sotomayor has served on the Second Circuit since 1998. She served as a federal district court judge in the Southern District of New York from 1992 to 1998.

Friedman lists a couple of Second Circuit decisions involving religion where Sotomayor joined the panel majority, but his list of Sotomayor’s Southern District decisions is most helpful:

• Mehdi v. United States Postal Service, 988 F. Supp. 721 (1997) [LEXIS link] (rejecting claim by Muslim plaintiffs that post offices must include crescent and star along with Christmas and Hanukkah decorations);
• Moore v. Kennedy, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11474 (1996) (prisoner free exercise);
• Miller v. New York State Department of Labor, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11067 (1996) (employment discrimination);
• Utkor v. McElroy, 930 F. Supp. 881 (1996) [LEXIS link] (immigration asylum);
• DiNapoli v. DiNapoli, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13778 (1995) (accusations against sibling, member of religious order, growing out of estate administration).
• Rodriguez v. Coughlin, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5832 (1994) and Campos v. Coughlin, 854 F. Supp. 194 (1994) [LEXIS link] (preliminary injunction allowing Santeria prisoners to wear religious beads).
• Flamer v. City of White Plains, 841 F. Supp. 1365 (1993) [LEXIS link] (enjoining city from preventing rabbi’s placing of menorah in city park during Hanukkah).

Read the full article at http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2009/05/sotomayor-is-high-court-pick-here-are.html