Only 3% of State Supreme Court Justices in U.S. Are Latino

By Amanda Hernandez

Published April 18, 2011

While Latinos make up 16 percent of the population of the United States, Latino judges make up only 3 percent of state supreme court justices across the country.

According to an analysis by Fox News Latino, only 10 out of a total of 326 state supreme court justices are Latino.

That number includes last month’s retirement of California judge Carlos R. Moreno, but not that of New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto, the first and only Hispanic justice on the state’s highest court, who has announced that he will not seek re-nomination when his term ends in September.

The low number seems all the more significant now, on the heels of the newly released 2010 Census data that shows the Hispanic population at 50 million.

Latino leaders, including former Latino state Supreme Court justices, worry about the dearth.

“It is really important that the court ought to look like New Mexico,â€