Sotomayor apologizes to Kavanaugh for ‘hurtful’ comments

WASHINGTON (CN) — Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a rare public apology on Wednesday after chiding Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial opinion in an immigration dispute.

“At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate,” the Barack Obama appointee said in a statement released by the court. “I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.”

Typically, the justices do not explicitly discuss their rulings outside of official opinions. But while visiting the University of Kansas School of Law last week, Sotomayor threw a direct jab at Kavanaugh.

“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops,” Sotomayor reportedly said. “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”

Last September, Kavanaugh penned a concurring opinion downplaying the fallout from the Trump administration’s roving immigration stops. Immigrant advocates said the sweeping patrols had swept up U.S. citizens and warned the justices against endorsing blatant racial profiling.

“If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter,” Kavanaugh wrote in a solo concurrence. “Only if the person is illegally in the United States may the stop lead to further immigration proceedings.”

The high court’s unexplained order allowing the Trump administration to continue targeting Latinos, Spanish speakers and certain workers for suspected illegal status, Kavanaugh’s concurrence came to characterize the ruling. Some critics coined the raids “Kavanaugh stops.”

President Donald Trump’s slash-and-burn governing style has served to elevate the brewing problems on the emergency docket. The dust-up between Sotomayor and Kavanaugh comes as the justices war over how to quickly resolve increasingly high-stakes disputes that often come to the court on incomplete records.

Justices Elena Kagan, another Obama appointee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, have similarly criticized their conservative colleagues’ use of the shadow docket. The liberal justices have taken turns warning that the court was too often deferring to the White House instead of the lower courts.

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