NEW YORK –There is little suspense left as the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court moves to the full Senate on August 7.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to approve Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Sotomayor on Tuesday in a 13-6 vote, almost along party lines. There was just one Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who joined Democrats in supporting her. "This is the first Latina woman in the history of the United States to be selected for the Supreme Court. Now that is a big deal," said Graham.

The ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, explained his opposition: "In speech after speech, year after year, Judge Sotomayor set forth a fully formed judicial philosophy that conflicts with American philosophy of blind justice to the law."

The Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Pat Leahy, deflected the criticism, saying, "In her 17 years on the bench there is not one example, let alone a pattern, of her ruling based on bias or prejudice of sympathy...she has been true to her oath and faithfully and impartially performed her duties as set forth by the Constitution."

Democrats control the Senate 60-40, ensuring Sotomayor's confirmation to the lifetime position and making her the first Hispanic to the high court. In addition to Graham, at least four other Republicans have said they will vote for Sotomayor, including Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Mel Martinez of Florida who has pointed to his shared Hispanic heritage.

The National Rifle Association, which is opposing Sotomayor, warned senators that it would include their votes on her confirmation in its annual candidate ratings, but that is not likely to significantly effect the numbers in her favor. Sotomayor is not tipping the court's ideological balance, since she's replacing liberal Justice David Souter.

Obama may have the opportunity to select up to two additional candidates to the Supreme Court and will certainly have learned something from this process and the ideological alarm bells set off by Republicans in response to what many consider a judge with a mainstream judicial record.

-Bob Regan, In Session senior executive producer

NEW YORK – Judge Sonia Sotomayor is getting the opportunity to convey her judicial philosophy as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee begin grilling the Supreme Court nominee on the second day of her confirmation hearings.

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor answers Senate Judiciary Committee questions

Sotomayor wasted no time in attempting to expound on her comments that a wise Latina would come to a better judgment on the bench than a white male without the same life experience.

"I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences," said Sotomayor.

The ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, from Alabama, pressed Sotomayor on her impartiality, “I just am very concerned that what you're saying today is quite inconsistent with your statement that you willingly accept that your sympathies, opinions and prejudices may influence your decision-making.”

Sotomayor addressed her ruling in the reverse discrimination case filed by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. - overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court - by explaining that it was about an examination for the firefighters, "not about quotas, not about affirmative action."

Concerning privacy rights and Roe versus Wade, Sotomayor said Tuesday she considers "all precedents of the Supreme Court" settled law. The divisive issue led to four anti-abortion activists being thrown out of the hearing yesterday.

On gun rights, Sotomayor told the committee that she has a Godchild who is a member of the NRA and would not take any "preconceived notions" to the high court if confirmed.

The hearing is expected to wrap up Thursday and a Senate vote should take place within a couple of weeks. There's word on Capitol Hill that some Republican senators will begin backing Sotomayor, but regardless, the Democratic majority makes it likely that Sotomayor will become the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, unless as Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, said, she has a "complete meltdown."

Stay tuned to In Session’s coverage of the hearings with Fred Graham live from Capitol Hill this week.

-Bob Regan, In Session senior executive producer

NEW YORK –The news is only a day old and, already, I have issues with the coverage.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor with President Barack Obama after announcing her as his Supreme Court nominee

Issue one: Barack Obama did not pick judge Sotomayor just because she is Puerto Rican or female.

The president picked her, first and foremost, on merit. The woman went to Princeton on scholarships, graduated summa cum laude; she then went on to Yale Law School where she edited the Yale Law Journal. The story of her life journey, including the fact that Sotomayor comes from the projects, only serves to underscore her intellectual prowess, as do her race and gender, since she came up at a time when few women of color went to law school at all. The bottom line: Judge Sotomayor is more qualified than any of the current justices were at the time of their appointments.

Issue two: The description of Sotomayor as a judicial activist.

Anyone who has taken the time to study her record has to know that any description of her as such is plainly false. While she may be a trailblazer in life, she is a moderate in law. Yes, she will have to explain some off-the-cuff remarks she has made, when she gets to Capitol Hill; but the very fact that the opposition has to dig that deeply for fodder with which to criticize this impressive woman, only demonstrates the strength of her record as a judge. As the New York Times headline reads today – “A Careful Pen With No Broad Strokes.”

Issue three (and most concerning): The suggestion that the practice of law should have nothing to do with empathy.

Of course the rule of law must always prevail; and it is for judges to apply the law not to change it when they don't like it. To suggest that a judge should not be cognizant of the real world consequences of her decisions, however, is to ignore the reasons so many of us go to law school in the first place. That is, as Sotomayor suggested in her remarks yesterday, to sustain the vision of the Founding Fathers and a Constitution that protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Who better to do that than a minority woman with the intellectual heft of her forbearers? That is why she will ultimately prevail.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – By all accounts, President Barack Obama will appoint a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court seat soon to be vacated by Justice David Souter. The short list is made up almost entirely of women:  women governors, women judges, women law professors. 

U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter

In fact, women hold dozens of seats on the nations' appellate courts, deanships at top law schools, and some of the highest political offices.  It is, quite simply, a different landscape than almost 30 years ago when Justice Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to serve on the highest court: Two hundred women are federal judges; one hundred sit on state supreme courts; And, one-third of chief justices of those courts are women. Seven governors are women. 

But, even if a woman is appointed, let’s not be fooled into thinking that full equality is a reality.

While forty-five percent of law firm associates are women, only 19 percent of partners are women. Just under one-half of the nation's law students are women, but we leave the profession in numbers far greater than our male counterparts. 

The numbers for women of color are more striking: Forty-four percent report being passed over for desirable assignments; nearly half report being subjected to demeaning comments or harassment at their firms.

Change comes, but it comes slowly.

When Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Court's first African American justice, was appointed in 1967, it did not mean an end to racial discrimination everywhere. Nor will gender inequality evaporate, if Justice Souter is replaced by a woman.

-Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – The U.S. Supreme Court just threw out the death sentence for a black man convicted of murder. And the vote wasn't even close. He gets a new trial because the prosecutor quite plainly used race to stack the jury.

Jami Floyd has the Last Word again.

Then, to add insult to Constitutional injury, the D.A. referred to the case - in front of the all white jury he’d secured - as his O.J. Simpson case. All this just months after that notoriously controversial acquittal. Read more

And that's why the Supreme Court smacked down that D.A. But this particular brand of bad D.A. behavior is not an isolated event. And it’s not limited to the “Deep South,” either. Watch

No, the practice of jury selection based on skin color is widespread, despite the Supreme Court's consistent rulings that to do so is a violation of the very Constitution prosecutors are sworn to protect.

So now rings out the reminder to prosecutors everywhere: use race to pick a jury and you may win the case only to see the conviction thrown out.

That is the Last Word.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK - Back to guns, one of the most contentious issues in America. Today is the first time in 70 years the Supreme Court takes up the Second Amendment and whether Washington, D.C., has the right to regulate guns.

Jami Floyd has the Last Word on guns.

The question is clear: What does the "right to bear arms" mean?

Until now, the Court has said that the Second Amendment is a general right related to the keeping of militias.

But for so many people it is personal. And I’m gonna be honest. This is a tough one for me. Cause I know I would like to have a gun if, like the folks in this case, I lived in a neighborhood overrun by gangs and gun violence. But I also know that guns are responsible for 81 percent of homicides in D.C.

So here's what I think. The keeping of a militia? That’s congressional business. But public safety? That's for the states.

So if D.C. needs to ban some guns to protect folks, that's okay by me. I’m sure glad that the real Last Word though, on this, lies with the Supreme Court.

And that is my Last Word.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – We're In Session this week for a love triangle murder trial - the state of Colorado v. Shawna Nelson, a former police dispatcher. Watch for posts from our producer detailing this fascinating case, and tune in to watch the five-day trial.

The Supreme Court takes up D.C.'s gun ban this week.

We’re also looking into guns and the right to own them. The issue is on the docket at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, when the justices hear arguments on whether a 1976 handgun ban by the District of Columbia violates the Constitution's Second Amendment.

In Session Senior Editor Fred Graham reports from outside the court. At issue: Does the U.S. Capitol's virtual handgun ban violate the right to bear arms guaranteed under the Bill of Rights? It's the first time in 70 years the Supreme Court has taken on the issue.

Finally, we also have a producer in Bonifay, Florida, wrapping up the case of Amanda Lewis, accused of drowning her daughter. Watch for that case in the coming weeks on In Session.

– Carolyn Purcell, In Session senior executive producer

NEW YORK – Every first year law student learns the Exclusionary Rule. The century-old constitutional doctrine forbids the use of evidence obtained by police as the result of an improper search.

Chief Justice John Roberts is following in the footsteps of his mentor.

The rule was bolstered in the 1960s, during the Warren Court, with Chief Justice Earl Warren and his brethren working mightily to clarify this important Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by government officials.

Not so the more recent Rehnquist Court, which has been no friend to the Exclusionary Rule. During his many years as chief justice, William Rehnquist and his fellow justices carved out exceptions that began to swallow the rule: Evidence obtained through “good faith" reliance on a bad warrant; evidence seized under "exigent circumstances"; even evidence that would have been discovered anyway (the so-called inevitable discovery doctrine).

Now Chief Justice John Roberts, who follows in the footsteps of his mentor, has signaled his desire to further limit the rule. In 2006, the Roberts Court allowed for evidence found by police officers after they stormed a Detroit apartment without knocking. (Knocking was previously a requirement).

That opinion, Hudson v. Michigan, can be read as a call for additional challenges to the Exclusionary Rule. And, just this week, the Court accepted a new case that will give it yet another opportunity to roll back the rule: Herring v. US, in which the Court will decide whether the list of exceptions should be expanded to include evidence obtained from a search by officers relying on a careless record–keeping error.

The officers in Herring arrested a man after being informed that he was the subject of an outstanding warrant. But the warrant had expired. Despite this, Herring was tried and convicted.

Most often the Supreme Court takes a case like Herring’s to reverse the underlying conviction; indeed, Herring’s appeal, brought by students at my alma mater, Stanford Law School, is an effort to secure just that – a reversal of fortune for Herring.

I’m betting, however, that the Court is going to side with police on this one.

In rolling back the Exclusionary Rule, the Supreme Court has, time and again, cited the “heavy toll” the suppression of reliable evidence takes on the criminal justice system. Perhaps suppression of evidence for violation of basic constitutional rights does place a burden on the system.

But it is precisely the burden of justice our Founders intended. The Constitution is not about the efficiency; it is about our fundamental freedoms.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

WASHINGTON - “Solutions cause problems,” Eric Sevareid used to say, and the Supreme Court was confronted with the truth of that today when it heard arguments on the constitutionality of a law designed to deal with the problem of voter fraud.

At issue was an Indiana law which requires voters to present at the polls a government-issued photo ID card. Lawyers for would-be voters who were turned away told the Justices the law was unnecessary, and that it placed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.

This was one of the laws passed in the national uproar over the chaotic Florida election of the year 2000. Previously, voters in most states were allowed to vote based on minimal identification, or just by giving a signature that matched the one in the registration book. But in the wake of the “hanging chad” hysteria, the Indiana legislature (and several other states) laid on new requirements to certify that imposters were not attempting to vote.

It was illogical, because ID fraud was not an issue in the Florida fiasco - vote-counting was. In the Supreme Court, Indiana’s lawyers were unable to show a single proven instance in the state of “voter impersonation.” Nevertheless, Republican legislators in Indiana (and elsewhere) used the public concern over the Florida situation to add new restrictions or voting.

It is ironic, because the legislatures should be making it easier to vote, not harder. They should be adopting voting by mail and the Internet, weekend voting, and other techniques for making voting easier.

We’ll have to wait and see if the Supreme Court will strike down the Indiana law. The Court is expected to rule before June, in time for the election in November. In the meantime, the county’s legislators would do well to follow the creed of the nations’ doctors, who take an oath to “Do no harm.”

– Fred Graham, In Session Senior Editor