Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) put Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the spot Tuesday afternoon at her confirmation hearings, trying to force her to either agree with President Obama’s “empathetic” criteria for judging or distance herself from his comments. In this case, she went in the latter direction:
Sen. Kyl:
Let me ask you about what the president said – and I talked about in my opening statement – whether you agree with him. He used two different analogies. He talked once about the 25 miles, [the] first 25 miles of a 26-mile marathon, and then he also said in 95 percent of the cases, the law will give you the answer, and [for] the last five percent, legal process will not lead you to the rule of decision. The critical ingredient in those cases is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart. Do you agree with him that the law only takes you the first 25 miles of the marathon and that that last mile has to be decided by what’s in the judge’s heart?
Sotomayor’s response:
No sir. That’s-, I don’t-, [I] wouldn’t approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. He has to explain what he meant by judging. I can only explain what I think judges should do, which is, judges can’t rely on what’s in their heart. They don’t determine the law. Congress makes the laws. The job of a judge is to apply the law. And so, it’s not the heart that compels conclusions in cases, it’s the law. The judge applies the law to the facts before that judge.
Kyl: “Appreciate that.”
