Legal Beat

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sanda Day O'Connor has little patience for people who go around accusing judges of being activists.

Senate Republicans lately have been voicing concerns that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's much maligned comments about the virtues of being a "wise Latina" judge could mean she will bring a specific agenda to the bench -- despite a raft of Sotomayor's opinions suggesting otherwise.

"I don't think the public understands what's meant by it," O'Connor said during an interview this morning on NBC's "Today" show. "It's thrown around by many in the political field and I think that probably for most users of the term they're distinguishing between the role of a legislator and a judge and they say that a judge should not legislate. The problem is, of course, that at the appellate level -- and the Supreme Court is the top on the appellate level -- rulings of the court do become binding law, so it's a little hard to talk in terms of who's an activist."