[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/27/intv.sessions.art.jpg caption="Sen. Jeff Sessions tells CNN's Kiran Chetry that Sonia Sotomayor will get a fair confirmation hearing."]

The White House says it is essential to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the replacement for Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. The president wants it done before the next court session starts in October. Opponents say the confirmation process takes time and it is important to thoroughly examine her record.

Senator Jeff Sessions is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and will be leading the Republicans through the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. He spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Wednesday.

Kiran Chetry: You're one of 11 sitting Republican senators who voted against Judge Sotomayor for her current position on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. What was your reasoning then and what do you need to hear from her now to give you the confidence to confirm her?

Jeff Sessions: Well, I think 29 senators voted against her last time. I think there was an unease, maybe about her background and her tendency to activism. We'll have to go back and look at the record and see what most people felt. But...I believe she's entitled to a fair slate now. A clean slate, a fresh start to examine the entire record in context and give her a chance to explain that. But there are some troubling things that are going to have to be inquired into for us to do our job so the American people can know that whoever is on the U.S. Supreme Court will be faithful to the law passed by the people of the United States.

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[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/26/sotomayor.getty.art.jpg caption="Sonia Sotomayor speaks as President Barack Obama listens after announcing her as his Supreme Court nominee May 26, 2009."]

President Obama announced today he has chosen federal judge Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. If confirmed, Obama's nominee will replace retiring Justice David Souter, who announced this month he would step down when the court's current session ends this summer.

CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin spoke to T.J. Holmes about the pick on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday.

T.J. Holmes: Jeffrey, any surprises here to you? It seems like she has been the front-runner since David Souter said he was going to step down.

Jeffrey Toobin: Well, if the president was going to pick a judge, it seemed very likely that Sotomayor was going to be the one. She is a very eminent judge. She would be the first Hispanic judge. She brings a certain bipartisan aura because she was originally appointed to the federal district court by the first President Bush. But President Obama has often spoke of the fact that he thinks people who are not judges should be appointed to the Supreme Court; people who are governors, who are politicians. And certainty he gave that possibility serious consideration. But in the end, he decided to pick one more federal appeals court judge to complete the all nine lineup on the court of all appellate court judges... Yes, it is possible he will have more appointments, but you never know. And he's had one so far. And this looks like a very solid pick, someone who will probably have very little trouble getting confirmed. And who will be a voice like David Souter for moderate liberalism.

Holmes: Moderate liberalism. That's what Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz told us earlier. He described her as moderate and to the left. Is that about right?

Toobin: I would say that's right. You never know for sure, because circuit court judges are bound by Supreme Court precedent. Supreme Court justices are less bound by Supreme Court precedent, so they have a little more running room. They get to expose their own inclinations to a greater degree than circuit court judges. So certainly she will be to the left on the court, with the three other liberals on the court - John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We'll see how liberal she is. I don't think anyone can know for sure. She probably doesn't even know at this point.

Holmes: You don't perceive her having any problem getting confirmed as you said here. So this one could go fairly smoothly for the president. You don't perceive having any issues getting in place on the bench when their new season starts up in the fall?

Toobin: Certainly based on what's known about Judge Sotomayor currently, I can't imagine any problems with confirmation. She has been a very distinguished judge for now pushing 20 years. Certainly there may be decisions that people disagree with, but there have been no ethical controversies involving her, no scandals. As John McCain liked to say, elections have consequences. And President Obama has picked someone who more or less reflects his own political views. He will likely have 60 votes in the Senate in the Democratic Party by summer. It just seems based on what's known now that this would be inconceivable as a defeated nomination.

Editor's note: Jeffrey Toobin is a CNN senior analyst and a staff writer at The New Yorker. A former assistant U.S. attorney, Toobin is the author of several critically acclaimed bestsellers, including "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court" and "Too Close to Call: The 36-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election."

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/14/intv.dershowitz.art.jpg caption= "Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz tells CNN's Kiran Chetry the Supreme Court should not be gender-balanced."]

Senate leaders who met with President Obama Wednesday said the president told them he’ll name his Supreme Court nominee soon. CNN is learning that the field has now been narrowed to about a half dozen names. Most of the people on the list are women.

Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz says it would be a mistake for President Obama to say the seat on the court belongs only to a woman. He spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Thursday.

Alan Dershowitz: It's a superb list. Elena Kagan is my former dean and a friend. I’ve argued cases in front of Judge Sotomayor and I know the others on the list. It's a very, very good list. My concern is this – the impression is being created, perhaps it's a false impression, that what President Obama has done is said bring me a list of women, Latinos and I'll pick from that the most qualified people. That can create a very bad starting point for any justice. They're not on the court as representatives of a particular gender or ethnicity. They are there because they are supposed to be the greatest legal minds in the country capable of dealing with some of the most complex issues. So I hope he picks the most qualified people. Among the most qualified people, obviously, are very distinguished women and Latinos and Asians and others of diverse backgrounds.

Kiran Chetry: If you look at the court it is dominated by white men. Is the court supposed to represent the country's population? And maybe it is or maybe it isn't, but half of the country is made up of females. Don't you think it's in the interest or responsibility of the president to try to bring some gender balance to the court?

Dershowitz: No. I don't think balance is the appropriate function of the Supreme Court. If you were looking at who should be represented on the court, there is only one white Protestant on the entire court and this is a country primarily of white Protestants. We don't want to see the court divided into kind of representative justices the way we have representative congress people and senators. I think that's the wrong approach to the court. You have a president like Obama who is, clearly, color blind and gender blind. We trust him, I think, to pick the best people. He is not going to be accused of in any way engaging in prejudice. Let him pick the best person. It’s very likely that best person might very well be a woman or a person of Latino background but I think it's a mistake for him to set out in advance to say I want only a woman, this is a woman's seat on the court.

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Professor Alan M. Dershowitz has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights.” He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School. Dershowitz joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/01/dershowitz.art.jpg caption="Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz describes Justice David Souter as a 'very, very good justice.'"]

In Washington and throughout the nation’s legal system, speculation took off Friday over who may join the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice David Souter. A source close to Souter told CNN Thursday that Souter plans to retire after the current term recesses in June, bringing to an end his more than 18 years on the bench.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Friday via phone from Pompeii, Italy.

John Roberts: It’s interesting to note that David Souter was appointed by a Republican, Bush 41, back in 1990. Yet, he waited for a Democratic president to take power to announce his retirement.

Alan Dershowitz: There’s no question that he became a real disappointment for the Republicans. He was a stealth candidate who emerged as a kind of centrist inclined to a liberal. In fact, the Souter appointment became a verb - they will never “Souter” anybody again. They will make sure that everybody is so carefully vetted so that they get true-blue conservatives. He was regarded as a warning sign and as a mistake by the Bush administration. And he emerged as a very, very good justice.

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