As I sat listening to Sen. Orrin Hatch's (predictable) opening remarks at Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation, I hoped -- against hope? -- that Republicans eventually would move beyond whining about "Democrat" opposition to President Bush's nominees. If that happens, C-SPAN junkies will be bombarded by technical terms and case citations. Click here for a crib sheet, originally published on the first day of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s confirmation hearings. Here's a sample:

• United States v. Lopez. In this 1995 decision the court by a 5-4 vote struck down the federal Gun Free School Zone Law, saying that Congress had exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause to regulate activities under the purview of the states.
• Color-blindness. The notion, frequently invoked by opponents of affirmative action, that the Constitution's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws" and the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibit laws that confer any benefits on the basis of race, even if the beneficiaries are members of groups that were the victims of racial discrimination in the past.
• Comparable worth. A system in which a government agency sets pay scales based on whether jobs done primarily by women (e.g., nursing) are of "comparable worth" to those mostly done by men (e.g., truckdriver). As a lawyer in the Reagan administration, Roberts called the concept "pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."
• Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. A July 15, 2005, decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in which Roberts joined the majority opinion upholding the legality of the military tribunals established by the Bush administration to try foreign suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

As a bonus, here's the Supreme Court decision overruling Sotomayor's ruling in the now-famous New Haven firefighters case. Who knows, somebody might bring it up.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images

Liberals and conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed dramatically during the past term on everything from the regulation of "indecent" broadcasting to employment discrimination to whether elected judges should recuse themselves from cases involving campaign benefactors.

A notable exception came in the 8-1 holding that an Arizona school had violated the 4th Amendment rights of a 13-year-old girl by subjecting her to a strip search (the dissenter was Clarence Thomas, taking his familiar role as outlier). The near-unanimity confounded publicly expressed fears by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the result might be affected by the fact that her eight male colleagues "have never been a 13-year-old girl."

Ginsburg's anxiety was understandable given the gender divide at oral arguments over whether removing your clothes is all that traumatic for a teenager. Ginsburg must have cringed ...

The editorial board bemoans the U.S. Supreme Court decision that inmates have no right to DNA testing that could exonerate them. Attempts by an accused person to find exculpatory evidence should be considered a basic part of due process. The board agrees with Colombian leaders that they, not the United States, should be the ones to try a man accused of holding 15 hostages including three who worked for military contractors. The board also takes a look at the Alameda Unified School District's new curriculum for teaching elementary school children about tolerance toward gays and lesbians, and concludes that the lessons take too heavy-handed an approach for such young children:

It's high time that schools took anti-bullying measures more seriously. We just never thought that would include requiring fifth-graders to recite the meaning of each letter in LGBT.

In attempting to discourage taunting of gay students, the Alameda Unified School District turned what should be a basic lesson on treating others kindly into a primer on sexual identity. Its new anti-bullying curriculum for kindergartners through fifth-graders will begin in the fall and focus solely on gay and lesbian issues -- as if harassment based on race, religion or failure to wear cool clothes were nonexistent. Parents who might object cannot opt their children out of it.

On the other side of the fold, writer Richard Farrell describes the haunting heights and low points of life with his domineering, sometimes abusive, sometimes intensely loving father. And a UCLA English professor parses the language of Middle East coverage and finds that it favors Israel over the concerns of Palestinians.

Illustration by Polly Becker for The Times

Even though it's a variation on the "Area Man" (or Area Woman) chestnut, the New York Daily News has a piece about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor that offers another twist on identity politics. Under the headline "Will Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Finally Meet His Match?", the article notes: "Neither of the brassy New Yorkers -- he's from Queens, she's from the Bronx -- suffers fools, or unprepared lawyers." (For the record, Scalia was born in New Joisey but raised in Queens.)

For a lot of non-New York readers, the adjective "brassy" is redundant: All New Yorkers are brassy types who won't suffer fools -- or sages -- gladly. My favorite New York story involves a freelance pitch I made years ago (eventually successfully) to The New York Times. When I reached the editor recommended to me, she answered the phone: "Who are you?"

Like ethnic stereotypes, their regional counterparts are rules proved (or unproved) by endless exceptions. Not every New Yorker is obnoxious, not every Southerner is hospitable, not every Californian says "like" a zillion times in every sentence. And yet  regional differences do survive even in an Internet-homogenized culture. Trial lawyers in my hometown of Pittsburgh loved to be pitted against Philadelphia lawyers, because the Philly mouthpieces hectored juries a mile a minute in a foreign, quasi-New York accent. It isn't just Southerners who preface their summations with "I'm just a simple, small-town lawyer."

I happen to enjoy the persistence of regional differences, especially the superior civility of Southerners. My Exhibit A appropriately comes from the U.S. Supreme Court, which I covered for a few years. At heavily attended oral arguments, spectators -- including student groups -- often were let out at the end of proceedings through the press section. As the students and teachers brushed by us, we would engage in small talk about where they were from and how the students had enjoyed the argument. ("I was riveted to my seat," one sarcastic seventh grader spat out. He reminded me of myself at that age.)

It's impressionistic, I admit, but I was struck by how many kids from Southern schools -- including boys --  addressed me as "Sir." It wasn't the first time I had encountered the North-South politeness differential. A TV news producer who moved from North Carolina to  Pittsburgh once told me that his son's high school classmates teased him relentlessly for addressing teachers and other adults as "Sir" or "Ma'am." I also have noted that Southerners of all ages who are caught up in CNN-friendly natural disasters address annoying TV reporters as "Sir" and "Ma'am."

Assuming Sotomayor becomes the third New York City product on the court (the decorous Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the exception that proves the rule here), it would be nice if a soft-spoken justice from the South would inject some civility into the judicial equivalent of a subway series. Alas, the only Southerner on the bench -- Clarence Thomas -- is soft-spoken to a fault, almost never opening his mouth during arguments.

I'm a big believer in simulations. For most of my career I have moonlighted (or, as with my current early-morning  gig at George Washington University, mornlighted) as a university journalism instructor. One of my most useful teaching tools, if I do say so myself, is a mock news conference at which a newly appointed "special assistant to the president for youth affairs" (impersonated by a series of glib twentysomethings) answers questions from students about his plans for the job (a "listening tour" of college campuses), his embarrassing past opinions (excavated from a bogus database) and his personal background (including a marijuana rap). I prefer a simulated press conference to a real one with say, a city council member, because it works better pedagogically. Students tend to be tongue-tied in the presence of a real politico, however small-time.

But a journalism class isn't a Supreme Court confirmation, which is why I'm distressed to read that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, like previous nominees, apparently will be put though the mock Senate confirmation hearings by the Obama White House. These rehearsals are known as "murder boards," and Harriet Miers' performance in such simulations reportedly contributed to the demise of her nomination.

It's fine for presidential candidates to engage in role-playing before debates, and allow staffers to shape their answers and critique their deportment. Campaign gurus, like congressional aides, are part of a politician's extended family. The relationship between the White House and a Supreme Court nominee is, or should be, different. Apparently President Obama was scrupulous about not asking Sotomayor about her view of Roe v. Wade, for fear of conditioning her appointment on a promise that she would vote a particular way on a contested issue. Is it any less troublesome from a separation-of-powers perspective for Obama's aides to stage-manage Sotomayor's presentation of what are supposed to be her own views?

Let the woman speak for herself, and leave the role-playing to computer geeks and journalism professors.

Credit: AP Photo / Alex Brandon

Two topics dominate today's Opinion pages: the California Supreme Court's validation of Proposition 8, and President Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. The editorial board said the debate prompted by the Prop. 8 and the subsequent appeal has helped persuade lawmakers in other states to legalize gay marriage. The challenge for proponents in California, the board said, is to conduct a better campaign for legalization here:

Civil rights groups should be focusing their time and money on reaching out to moderate voters with information that quells misdirected fears. Contrary to what the pro-Proposition 8 ads implied, no religious group ever lost tax-exempt status over refusal to perform same-sex weddings; San Francisco students who attended their lesbian teacher's wedding had the written endorsements of their parents; gay marriage will not be forced into the California schools curriculum; and faith-based adoption agencies will continue to operate.

Columnist Tim Rutten, meanwhile, focused on the ruling itself, calling the justices' reasoning "intellectually and morally incoherent":

So, if a majority of Californians voted to "carve out a narrow exception" to California's right to privacy and applied it only to Jews, would it be constitutionally acceptable? If Native Americans were accorded all the protections of the law by a ballot proposition, except the right to marry a non-Indian, would that be legal?

This is social and moral nonsense.

Regarding Obama's Supreme Court pick, the editorial board likened Sotomayor to 2005 nominee John Roberts (whom the board supported). Her point of view wouldn't be confused with his, the board said, but she also fits "squarely within the tradition" of nominees with excellent legal credentials and views that "fall within the mainstream." On the Op-Ed side of the fold, Rutgers University professor David Greenberg speculates that Obama's choice of Sotomayor was so politically shrewd, it may have "checkmated" conservative opponents. (Backing Greenberg's thesis, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee all but ruled out a filibuster.)

Rounding out the pages, author David Wolman offers an entertaining history of American spelling rules. And readers weigh in on small cows, shrunken education budgets, reduced spending on military cargo planes and a life cut tragically short in Vernon.

Credit: AP Photo / Alex Brandon 

After President Obama announced the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, some colleagues and I tried to answer the question "Is she or isn't she?" -- not "Is she or isn't she a judicial activist?", but "Is she or isn't she a Catholic?" The blogosphere yesterday featured a catholic (lower-case C) collection of opinions about whether the nominee, a Latina educated at a school named after Cardinal Spellman, was one of us, and to what extent. (The Boston Globe website offers a comprehensive survey of the speculations.)

Under the headline, "This Just In . . . Sotomayor IS Catholic," Steve Waldman at Beliefnet revealed that "a White House official just confirmed to me that she, in fact, Catholic." Later, however, Waldman caveated his scoop: "Another White House official elaborated slightly, Judge Sotomayor was raised as a Catholic and attends church for family celebrations and other important events."

This would make her a "cultural Catholic." Does that count? It certainly does when Catholic activists point to the size (and political clout) of their flock. As the saying goes, "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic." Or as a priest in Pittsburgh observed, after a friend of mine referred to someone as an ex-Catholic: "There are no ex-Catholics, only bad Catholics."

So, given that definition, Sotomayor would be would be the sixth RC on the court, reducing the Protestant cohort to one, Justice John Paul Stevens. Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are Jewish.

In a recent blog post, I warned of this marginalization of a group that long dominated the court (and everything else in America, except Hollywood, big-city police forces and organized crime). Still, no WASP Anti-Defamation League has formed to protest -- maybe because Sotomayor is a liberal Catholic, unlike co-religionists like John Roberts and Nino Scalia.

Which raises another question: Will hard-line Catholic bishops demand that a Justice Sotomayor enforce the church's opposition to abortion in her decisions? Will she be denied Holy Communion at one of those "family celebrations"? Or, as Waldman put it: "Will We have a SCOTUS "Wafer Watch'?"

Photo: Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor visiting her alma mater, Cardinal Spellman High School. Credit: White House handout, courtesy Getty Images.

Silly arguments for and against potential nominees are part of the circus surrounding a Supreme Court selection. So far Judge Sonia Sotomayor's suitability has been questioned because of her weight and diabetes, and there are murmurs about the fact that Jews and Catholics loom large in the talent pool in which President Obama is fishing, raising the possibility that the Supreme Court that convenes in October will have only one Protestant justice (John Paul Stevens).

The nuttiest objection so far is that Obama should think twice before nominating Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm because she was born in Canada. Accoring to the CanWest News Service, "several

U.S. media outlets have speculated that the governor's Canuck roots could create an unwanted political distraction for Obama, who can choose from an abundance of qualified candidates actually born in the U.S.A."

My first reaction was that this was bogus news, a Canadian version of the traditional "Area Man" story localizing a national (or in this case international) story. But CanWest offers examples of truly bizarre musings by American news outlets about the liability representd by Granholm's birth in Vancouver, B.C. A story in the Detroit News, for example,asserts: "Another negative could be that Granholm is not a natural-born citizen, having been born in Canada. The last justice who was a naturalized citizen was Felix Frankfurter, who was born in Austria and served on the court from 1939-62."

It's hard to believe Obama would allow himself to be hosed by this sort of xenophobia. It's not just that America is routinely described as "a nation of immigrants." Canadians, particularly Canadians who have taken on U.S. citizenship, are far less foreign to many Americans than their own countrymen -- assuming, that is, that anyone knows the people in question are Canadians. Twenty years ago, an MTV faux quiz show called "Remote Control" had a category called "Dead or Canadian?" Of course, someone can be both, but living or dead Canadians are often assumed to be Americans -- a sore point for Canadian nationalists, who are always sore in my experience.

If Granholm is nominated and anti-Canadian prejudice rears its head (as Sarah Palin would say), Obama should line up some Canuck-Americans to testify on her behalf before the Judiciary Committee, including Michael J. Fox, some National Hockey League stars, Paul Shaffer, Neil Young, Lorne Michaels, Mortimer Zuckerman and John Roberts (the CNN anchor, not the chief justice). As Bob and Doug McKenzie would say, the Detroit News handicappers should take off, eh.

The Times published an editorial April 30 criticizing life sentences without parole for California juveniles as young as 14 and supporting a bill by state Sen. Leland Yee that would permit such inmates to eventually seek parole – after they've spent at least a quarter century in prison. The editorial cited the case of South Los Angeles resident Antonio DeJesus Nuñez, who may be the only person in the world sentenced to life without parole for a crime he committed as a minor in which no one died or was injured.

That's not an overstatement. The New York-based Human Rights Watch asserts that the United States is the only nation in which minors are sentenced to life in prison without parole; we have 2,571.

A 2007 report from the University of San Francisco did find some youth outside the U.S. sentenced to life without parole: a grand total of seven of them, all in Israel. [*UPDATED: See below.]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child bans life without parole for youth, but the United States is one of only two U.N. member nations that have not signed it -- the other being Somalia.

Nuñez was 14 at the time of his arrest. He was convicted of a frightening and brutal crime – kidnapping a man for ransom. And, by the way, he shot at police officers when they gave chase. Prosecuting him made sense. Imprisoning him made sense. But life? With no chance of parole? For a crime he committed when he lacked the judgment and maturity, in society's view, to drive a car, vote, honor a contract, marry without parental consent, join the military or go to an R-rated movie? Should he never get a second look, once he grows up and we can see whether he studied in prison, behaved, repented? Do we believe that some youths are simply irredeemable, and that in our wisdom we can look them over at age 14 and know which ones can be salvaged as adults and which can't?

The same day the editorial ran, California's Fourth District Court of Appeal granted Nuñez's habeas corpus petition and threw out his life without parole (the legal jargon is LWOP) sentence, ruling that it violated constitutional strictures against cruel and unusual punishment and ordering the trial court to resentence the inmate, who is now 22. Read the court's opinion here.

For those who believe it's too costly, too cruel and just plain too bizarre to sentence a teenager to LWOP (more jargon – JLWOP, with the J standing for juvenile), the ruling was good news. But only sort of.

The original Supreme Court: nine pagans? (Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

OK, I'm kidding. Does anyone care -- other than a few religion-obsessed bloggers -- that at least one of the leading candidates to succeed Souter is a Catholic? I don't think so, any more than Protestants in my native state of Pennsylvania feel disenfranchised because the state's governor is Jewish, as is one of the U.S. senators (Arlen Specter, unless he changes religions to improve his election chances). The other senator, Bob Casey, is a Catholic.

The decline of the WASP is old news (Peter Schrag wrote a book with that title in 1970), so why aren't members of that ethnic/religious group demanding representation on the court? Don't young white Protestant lawyers need role models? 

Well, we know the answers: White Protetants are secure in their accomplishments in other sectors of society; religion isn't the social marker it used to be; and anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism are, at least in most places, passe. (So, to a lesser extent, is prejudice against women and African-Americans.) Ironically, it was bias against Catholics and Jews that led to the unofficial creation of "Catholic" and "Jewish" seats on the 20th century Supreme Court. Such tokenism was designed less to achieve diversity than to attract  votes.

The interesting question is whether the groups now celebrating what I have called "look like me" diversity will eventually become self-confident to the point of no longer keeping score. I hope so, because the politics of Supreme Court appointments will become more complicated as new groups enter and excel in the legal profession. Check out how many of the young lawyers in the U.S. Solicitor General's office are of South Asian origin. Hmm.... Maybe we need a "Protestant" seat on the court after all.