Many hours in… the last questioner of the day Senator Cardin (D-MD) asked Judge Sotomayor a very general question of her views on the importance of religious freedom, making reference to her decision in the Ford case. In response, she acknowledged the "fundamental" nature of religious freedom, in both the legal and colloquial sense, and discussed briefly the key precedent that guided her in that prisoner exercise case, the important idea that we value religious beliefs not for their orthodoxy, but in being sincerely held. Beyond that, she indicated, she could not go into much detail as each case brings with it unique facts.
My rough transcript below:
CARDIN: Let me conclude on one other case that you ruled on where I also agree with your decision, and that's Ford v. McGinnis, where you wrote a unanimous panel decision overturning a district court summary judgment finding in favor of the Muslim inmate who was denied by prison officials access to his religious meals marking the end of Ramadan. You held that the inmate's fundamental rights were violated, and that the opinions of the Department of Correction religious authorities can not trump the plaintiff's sincere and religious beliefs.
The freedom of religion is one of the basic principles in our Constitution as I said in my opening comments. It was one of the reasons why my grandparents came to America. The freedom of religious expression is truly a fundamental American right. Please share with us your philosophy as to – maybe that's a wrong use of terms – the importance of that provision in the Constitution, and how you would go about dealing with cases that could affect that fundamental right in our Constitution.
SOTOMAYOR: I don't mean to be funny, but the Court has held that it's "fundamental" in the sense of incorporation against the states. But it is a very important and central part of our democratic society that we do give freedom of religion, of practice of religion, that the Constituition restricts the state from establishing a religion, and that we have freedom of expression in speech as well. Those freedoms are central to our Constitution. The Ford case, as others that I have rendered in that area, recognized the importance of that in terms of one's consideration of actions that are being taken to restrict it in a particular circumstance.
Speaking further is difficult to do, again, because of the role of a judge. To say that it's important, that it's fundamental in its legal and common meaning, is always looked at in the context of a particular case. What's the state doing? In the Ford case that you just mentioned, the question before the court was: did the district court err in considering whether or not the religious belief that this prisoner had was consistent with the established traditional interpretation of a meal at issue. And what I was doing was applying very important Supreme Court precedent that said it's the subjective belief of the individual. Is it really motivated by a religious belief? It's one of the reasons why we recognize conscientious objectors, because we're asking a court not to look at whether this is orthodox or not, but to look at the sincerity of the individual's religious belief, and then look at what the state is doing in light of that, so that what was the issue was in Ford.
See church-state liveblog of Day 1 and Day 2 of the hearings.
