When Coburn asked whether all Americans had a right to self-defense, Sotomayor appeared to draw a blank.
"I'm trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? And I can't think of one. I could be wrong, but I can't think of one," she said.
Later, when Sessions asked her about a city law that would "eliminate all guns," Sotomayor said she could not comment because that issue was pending on appeal before the high court in a case from Chicago.
Sotomayor also steered clear of questions involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act and bans on same-sex marriage. Both are being challenged in lower courts, and the Supreme Court will have to rule eventually on whether the federal government can limit benefits for same-sex couples who are legally married.
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david.savage@latimes.com
joliphant@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
In her own words
On the third day of her Senate confirmation hearing, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor spoke about the role of judges and her fidelity to the law. Here are some excerpts:
On choosing cases
"We don't make policy choices. That means that I would think it inappropriate for a court to choose a case, or for a judge to choose a case, based on some sense of 'I want this result on society.' A judge takes a case to decide a legal issue."
On the Constitution
"The words are the words. The court can't be looking to ignore the words or to change them. What it does is apply those words to each situation."
On her judicial temperament
"I think that most lawyers who participate in arguments before me know how engaged I become in their arguments in trying to understand them. . . . That can appear tough to some people, because active engagement can sometimes feel that way. But my style is to engage as much as I can so I can assure myself that I understand what a party is intending to tell me."
On legal precedents
"That's what precedents do. They provide a framework. The Constitution remains the same; society changes. The situations [brought] before courts change, but the principles are the words of the Constitution, guided by how precedent gives or has applied those principles to each situation, and then you take that and you look at the new situation."
On the "necessary state of flux" of the law
"It's not that it's important to the law as much as it is that it's what legal cases are about. People bring cases to courts because they believe that precedents don't clearly answer the fact, situation, that they're presenting in their individual case. . . . If law was always clear, we wouldn't have judges. It's because there is indefiniteness not in what the law is, but its application to new facts that people sometimes feel it's unpredictable."
On her influences
"I was influenced so greatly by a television show in igniting the passion that I had as being a prosecutor, and it was 'Perry Mason.' . . . That TV character said something that motivated my choices in life and something that holds true. . . . Defense attorneys serve a noble role, as well. All participants in this process do: judges, juries, prosecutors and defense attorneys. We are all implementing the protections of the Constitution."
