Sotomayor’s first day on bench in public session, Ricky Martin attends
Justice Sonia Sotomayor received a warm welcome from her fellow Supreme Court colleagues on her first day on the bench in a public session attended by such luminaries as President Barack Obama and singer Ricky Martin.
Sotomayor, 55, is the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court and only the third woman. She wore the standard black judicial robe, with a white lace collar, known as a jabot, that was given to her by her colleague, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The investiture marked the third ceremony for Sotomayor since the Senate approved her nomination in early August.
The other eight Supreme Court members took the bench for the latest ceremony which lasted about six minutes and included her reciting the judicial oath.
It ended with Chief Justice John Roberts, on behalf of the entire court, extending to the former federal judge from New York a “warm welcome” and wishing her “a long and happy career in our common calling.”
Then, Roberts and Sotomayor walked down the front steps of the building and stood briefly on the plaza, directly across from the U.S. Capitol, for photographs. “Tell me when you have enough,” a smiling Sotomayor said to the photographers.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed that singer Ricky Martin was among the several hundred people who attended the ceremony, but had no other details on why the Puerto Rican-born pop singer had been invited. Sotomayor’s parents were from Puerto Rico.
Nobody has to feel sad because Ricky Martin was there not as an entertainer but a responsible human being after all the humanitarian work he has been doing.Society needs such activists in order to change the way it is headed.