WASHINGTON (July 9, 2009)--A new study says high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor typically handed out tougher prison sentences than her colleagues in the federal courthouse in Manhattan, especially to white-collar criminals.

The study, released Thursday, says that nearly half the people Sotomayor sentenced for financial fraud and other white-collar crimes received at least 6 months in prison.

Roughly one out of three white-collar convicts received similarly lengthy prison terms from the other trial judges in the Southern District of New York, the study found.

Sotomayor served as a trial judge from 1992 to 1998, when she joined the federal appeals court in New York.

The analysis is from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.