Math is hard

Oh my goodness. I am stunned, actually, at how much traction the whole "she's been reversed 60% of the time" notion has gotten. Oh my goodness! The sky is falling! She's the worst judge ever! The US Supreme Court has reversed her 60% of the time!!! Has any Supreme Court nominee in history been this incompetent?! This wrong?! This god-awful terrible at being a judge?!?! It's all over the t.v.s and the internets. It's the funniest thing I've ever heard, seen, and read. The word of the day is absurd. This reversal rate crap is absurd.

Please tell me that you have all heard or read why this is such nonsense (or can figure it out for yourselves). The 60% is 3 out of 5. The US Supreme Court has reversed her written opinions in 3 out of 5 cases. Well, that sure does sound bad. Boy, she's written 5 opinions in 11 years and she's gotten 3 of 'em wrong! And what sort of a slacker judge only issues 5 written opinions in 11 years?! Oh, wait. She's issued about 380 written opinions in 11 years. Hmm. And the Supremes have reversed her only 3 times? See how different that sounds? That makes her sound downright brilliant. She gets it right 99% of the time!

Basically, the US Supreme Court takes so very few cases (about 80 a year out of the thousands and thousands of cases handled by the federal circuit courts), the results of those 80 cases are not statistically significant. Even if they were, the court reverses 75% of the cases it does take, so Sotomayor is a little above average. As a federal appellate judge, Justice Alito was reversed 100% of the time. He was 2 for 2. (Oy, how did that idiot ever get confirmed to the high court?!)

Maybe the anti-Sotomayorians should have done just a wee bit of research (and basic math) before making this the talking point of the day. It just makes it so easy for us leftists to mock.