Her friends and supporters say her views of slavery underpin her judicial philosophy. It was her study of that history, they say, combined with her evangelical Christian faith and her self-propelled rise from poverty that led her to abandon the liberal views she learned from her family.

"We discuss things like, 'How did slavery happen?"' said her friend and mentor Steve Merksamer, a lawyer in Sacramento, Calif. "It comes down to the fact that she believes, as I do, that some things are, in fact, right and some things are, in fact, wrong. Segregation -- even though the courts had sustained it for a hundred years -- was morally indefensible and legally indefensible and yet it was the law of the land," he said. "She brings that philosophy to her legal work."

On the California Supreme Court, her opinions have reflected the philosophy and language of her speeches. In an opinion involving fees charged to San Francisco hotel owners, for example, she proclaimed that "private property, already an endangered species in California, is now entirely extinct in San Francisco." In an affirmative action case, she criticized "entitlement programs based on group representation." And in dissenting in a case involving Nike's labor practices, she compared the United States Supreme Court to "a wizard trained at Hogwarts" conjuring up distinctions about commercial speech that she said restricted businesses' freedoms.

On Wednesday, two years after President Bush first nominated her, the Senate voted 56 to 43 to confirm Justice Brown. She was the second of three appellate court nominees who had been blocked by Senate Democrats until a compromise was reached a few weeks ago. Immediately after her confirmation, the Senate voted 67 to 32 to close debate on the third stalled nominee, Judge William H. Pryor Jr., setting the stage for a vote on him on Thursday.

Justice Brown, though, was the focus of special attention from both sides in the Senate. For one thing, she was named to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, widely considered the most influential appellate court and currently almost evenly divided between Republican and Democratic appointees. And even before her confirmation, however, she was often cited as a potential candidate for the Supreme Court, in part because of her politically appealing life story.