Hoover, AL -

One of Alabama's own will help decide whether Sonya Sotomayor will sit on the Supreme Court.  Sen. Jeff Sessions is the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he recently met with the nominee.

 

"I've enjoyed meeting with her. I have committed to her that we will have a fair hearing. It's not going to be a personal attack and abuse."

But Sotomayor will have to answer some tough questions at the confirmation hearing, about her past rulings and her past speeches, which Sen. Sessions, a former U.S. Attorney, has been reading.

"Some are good and some of her speeches have been troubling."

Sotomayor has taken a lot of heat for part of a 2001 speech in which she said "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

We asked Sen. Sessions about that.

"Those statements and even those by President Obama when they talk about empathy. They suggest that an individual is not bound by evidence and facts," he says. "The ideal of American justice is the judge is blindfolded, and the scales are equal, and regardless of the person in front of them, whether they like them or not, they give them a fair trial based on the evidence and the law. It's a troubling ideology to me, and she'll need to answer questions about that."

This will be the third time Sessions has had a role in confirming a Supreme Court Justice, when hearings begin on July 13.  He was also on the committee during the confirmations of Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

 Email To Friend