Justice Sotomayor Admits Some SCOTUS Rulings Have Driven Her To Tears

Justice Sonia Sotomayor admitted on Friday that some of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court’s rulings have privately driven her to tears — and hinted that there are likely going to be more of such instances soon as the high court gears up to hand down majorly consequential decisions.

Sotomayor made the vulnerable remarks at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where she received a medal for being what the institute said is “a discerning jurist who never fails to recognize the human impact of legal decisions.”

“There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” the liberal justice said. “There have been those days. And there are likely to be more.”

Sotomayor’s comments come around the time of year when the Supreme Court decides the fate of several high-profile cases. As is the situation every year, justices usually issue opinions on the most controversial cases around June — a period that has become increasingly fraught as the court grows more extreme and ideologically unbalanced.

Among dozens of other rulings, the court is expected to hand down major decisions next month on whether states with abortion bans can ignore federal mandates for hospitals and criminalize life-saving abortion care in emergency medical situations, whether the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to expand access to the abortion pill mifepristone and whether former President Donald Trump can claim immunity from federal prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

“I live in frustration. And as you heard, every loss truly traumatizes me in my stomach and in my heart,” Sotomayor said earlier this year at the University of California, Berkeley’s