Obama picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court

55*-+-+*-9652069

President Barack Obama nominated Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, selecting a woman who would be the court’s first Latino to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

Sonia Sotomayor’s path to the pinnacle of the legal profession began in the 1960s at a Bronx housing project just a couple blocks from Yankee Stadium, where she and her family dealt with one struggle after another.

She suffered juvenile diabetes that forced her to start insulin injections at age 8. Her father died the next year, leaving her to be raised by her mother – a nurse at a methadone clinic who always kept a pot of rice and beans on the stove. The parents had immigrated from Puerto Rico.

Sotomayor immersed herself in Nancy Drew books and spent hours watching Perry Mason on television, and knew she wanted to be a judge by the age of 10 after being inspired by a Perry Mason episode that ended with the camera settling on the robed sage.

Now, Sotomayor is one of the most important players in the nation after being nominated for a Supreme Court seat by President Barack Obama.

Her nomination to the appeals court was delayed 15 months, reportedly because of concerns by Republicans that she might someday be considered for the Supreme Court.

“I don’t think anybody looked at me as a woman or as a Hispanic and said, ‘We’re not going to appoint her because of those characteristics.’ Clearly that’s not what occurred,” she recalled in a 1998 interview.