WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor tried Tuesday to defuse controversy over her remarks about the superior judgment of a "wise Latina," saying that her comments were a "rhetorical flourish" and that at no time "have I ever permitted my personal views or sympathies to influence an outcome of a case."
Tuesday was the first day that the 55-year-old federal appellate judge, who's bidding to become the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, faced questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
What little controversy remains often centers on her 2001 remarks about the advantages of being a Latino woman. Republicans quizzed her hard on the comment and others that suggest she uses her life experiences to guide her judicial work.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's top Republican, also questioned Sotomayor's judicial temperament, saying that she has made several statements over the years that call her impartiality into question.
Sotomayor calmly, repeatedly assured the committee that she has always striven to be fair, and said her "wise Latina" comment was "bad because it left an impression that I believe that life experiences commanded a result in a case. But that's clearly not what I do as a judge."
She added, "My record shows that at no point or time have I ever permitted my personal views or sympathies to influence an outcome of a case."
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had gotten Sotomayor to defend herself quickly from the "wise Latina" remark.
"You've heard all these charges and countercharges ... here's your chance. You tell us what's going on here, judge," Leahy said.
"No words I have ever spoken nor written have received so much attention," Sotomayor said, chuckling. "I was trying to inspire them to believe their life experiences would enrich the legal system, because different life experiences and backgrounds always do. I don't think there is a quarrel with that in our society."
She said she also was trying to inspire minorities to be anything they wanted.
The context of the words, however, Sotomayor acknowledged, "created a misunderstanding, and to give everyone assurances I want to state up front, without doubt, I do not believe any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judgment."
"I do believe every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experience," she said.
Leahy, the first senator to ask questions, also tried to ease other controversies. What qualities, he asked, does a judge have, and how does that shape your approach to your work?
Sotomayor cited the comments of other senators, who said that a judge had to show respect for the Constitution and "an understanding that respect is guided by ... a full appreciation of the limited jurisdiction of the court in our system of government, but understanding its importance as well. That is the central part of judging."
Leahy dived right into what's likely to be the biggest controversy of the hearing: Sotomayor's ruling, along with two other judges, that the New Haven, Conn., fire department didn't deny firefighter Frank Ricci a promotion unfairly. The Supreme Court reversed that decision by a 5-4 vote last month.
The case was decided "on the basis of a very thorough 78-page decision by the district court and on the basis of established precedent," she said.
"The issue in Ricci was what the city did or could do when it was presented with a challenge to one of its tests for promotion," Sotomayor explained. "This was not a quota case. This was not an affirmative action case. This was a challenge to a test that everybody agreed had a very wide difference in the pass rate of a variety of different groups."
She also addressed any notion that she isn't tough on crime, recalling her days in the New York City prosecutor's office and how she learned that "each case gets decided case by case."
The Tarzan murder case, she said - named after a man who used acrobatic feats as he committed his crimes - was an early test for her. As a young prosecutor, she helped convict murderer Richard Maddicks. She said she learned about the human consequences of crime and the law.
"That family was destroyed," she said of the victim's family. "They scattered to the four winds, and only one brother remained in New York who could testify. That case taught me that prosecutors - as all participants in the justice system - must be sensitive to the price crime imposes on our entire society."
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