Since David H. Souter announced his plans to retire as a Supreme Court Justice, speculation continues to grow as to whom President Barack Obama will pick to fill the vacancy. Among the most talked-about names on Obama’s purported short list is Sonia Sotomayor.

Sotomayor, a federal judge in Manhattan, first made headlines in 2005 as a possible replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor. Her name sprung up again recently when Ruth Ginsburg was recovering from pancreatic cancer. Now that Obama is in office and has already appointed several women and people of various diversities to his staff, Sotomayor, a Latina woman with 16 years of court experience, seems to rank the best odds to replace the liberal-leaning Souter.

Sotomayor was born in Bronx, NY, in 1954. She was nominated by George H.W. Bush on November 27, 1991, to serve as a judge in the U.S. District Court. She now serves as a judge in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On April 9, 2009, New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand wrote a joint letter to President Obama asking him to appoint a Latino – either Sotomayor or Interior Secretary Ken Salazar — to the Supreme Court if a vacancy should arise. The letter read:

Schumer and Gillibrand said both would make outstanding justices and help ensure that the Supreme Court reflects the full diversity of the nation. This would be the first-ever nomination of a Latino to the Supreme Court. ‘It’s long overdue that a Latino sit on the United States Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor and Ken Salazar are two candidates who would make outstanding justices. They have top-notch legal minds, years of experience, moderate approaches to the law and would make history by being the first Latino on the court,’ Senator Schumer said.

While Sotomayor seems to be the apple of many eyes, Politico’s Ben Smith doesn’t think she will be the next Supreme Court Justice:

There’s some basically vacuous, but plausible, conventional wisdom saying that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a likely pick. I’d suspect, though, that Obama will be tempted to pick one of the prominent legal minds whom he knows personally, and whose philosophy he likes, given his own engagement with legal theory.