Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences...our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.

Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.

You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action.

As a Catholic, you can have two views on capital punishment. You can think, let Caesar do what Caesar needs to do, and the law says you can impose capital punishment, so you impose it. You can [also] be a Catholic who says we can't kill, we can't kill babies and we can't kill adults. If you let a decision be driven by your personal views, then you are not doing what a judge needs to do, which is enforce the laws of the society that you are in. But you can control your own behavior, and that is the choice that the church and God gives us - what kind of people are we going to be.

As you may know from my life story, my cousin who was my soul mate went to a public school. And he died of AIDS. Would I and my brother have been able to resist the lure of drugs in the surrounding schools? Who knows.

That tide of insecurity would come in and out over the years, sometimes stranding me for a while but occasionally lifting me just beyond what I thought I could acomplish. Either way, it would wash over the same bedrock certainty: ultimately, I know myself.