A nominee's legal philosophy is what really counts

A great deal of the caseload for the United States Supreme Court 

and other appellate courts involves deciding what a word in 

a statute or even the Constitution means. There are cases 

when Justices must decide if the Constitution's words are meant 

to be limited to the times  in which they were written or can be 

considered in light of today's standards . Two Justices on a panel 

debated  whether the Constitution is a "living" document meant 

to expand to meet the times. Justice Antonin Scalia said it is not.

For example, the 8th Amendments prohibition against 

cruel and unusual  punishment was written in an era where 

lethal injections were unknown. But the Court had to consider 

whether the mixture used today in many states met the 

"cruel and unusual" standard.  

An article by Michael Dorf explains Supreme Court nominee

Sonia Sotormayer's legal philosophy which he says is legal 

realism as opposed to Chief  Justice Robert and Justice 

Thomas's philosophy which is legal formalism. 

Each of these philosophies would look at the words 

involved in a statute differently. Consider that Plessey 

v. Ferguson held that separate could be equal and thus 

separate schools, restrooms, train cars based on race 

were constitutional. When Brown v. Board of Education 

was decided, the Court declared unanimously that separate 

can never be truly equal  and desegregation came to be 

the rule of the country.

When they are written, statutes can never be considered 

in every kind of situation. This is equally true of rules and 

regulations. Does the 1st Amendment's freedom of religion 

trump prison security regarding facial  hair when a religion 

prohibits shaving? When the disability statute requires 

"reasonable" accommodation, what is reasonable?

Deciding what the "law" truly says means analyzing words 

in statutes and in the constitution. Thus the philosophy 

of a jurist will give clues to the approach used to decipher 

words.