Snippet

The following snippet from the Sotomayor confirmation hearings deserves mention.

GRAHAM: When it comes to civilian criminal law, do you know of any concept in civilian law that would allow someone be held in criminal law indefinitely without trial?

SOTOMAYOR: When you're talking about civilian criminal law, you're talking about...

GRAHAM: Domestic criminal law.

SOTOMAYOR: Domestic criminal prosecutions.

GRAHAM: Right.

SOTOMAYOR: After conviction, defendants are often sentenced...

GRAHAM: I'm talking about you're held in jail without a trial.

There are many easy excuses to make for Sotomayor's apparent ignorance of the legal fact that "conviction" comes after a "trial". Confirmation hearings are long and exhausting, she was obviously only trying (as she did the entire hearing) to obfuscate, and so forth. That said, one would be hard-pressed to review the transcripts of previous Supreme Court nominees and find something similarly embarrassing.