Sit long enough in a Capitol Hill committee room and somebody will say something loopy.

Members of the Senate Judicial Confirmation Committee didn't disappoint last week. They speculated about 3rd District Judge Robert Hilder's divorce. Did he or didn't he cheat? (No.) Was his first wife's illness the cause of the divorce? (No.) Did he have a bit of "male menopause?" (Huh?) Is he pro or anti-Mormon? Is he defensive?

Some of the questions were unconstitutional. Many had nothing to do with the issue at hand: Should Hilder be appointed to the Utah Court of Appeals?

But lawmakers were putting on a show.

They've been buried in e-mail and phone calls from the gun rights lobby -- Utahns who want to carry their guns on the University of Utah campus and into courthouses. Hilder briefly stymied them and they're out for blood.

Still, rejecting Hilder under pressure from people who cling to their guns would look suspect. Instead, the senators padded their opposition to Hilder's nomination with conjecture and innuendo and righteous indignation.

"Is that enough to disqualify a person from being a judge? I think the public may want to know," said Logan Republican Sen. Lyle Hillyard. "You made a commitment to the marriage situation. If I were to do the same thing, I would not get re-elected."

In the end, Hillyard voted to send Hilder's nomination to the full Senate for a vote on Wednesday.

Those are the kinds of things said all the time behind closed doors. But lawmakers aired them deliberately, laying the groundwork for the Senate to reject the judge. Court administrators can't remember the last time a judge was rejected; a few have withdrawn their names. With Hilder's treatment, who could blame him?

On the judge's record, few could take issue with his judgment. He's beloved by attorneys and other judges. Still, lawmakers dissected his cases: a divorced mother who was shot by police, and a hunter who killed himself after Hilder sentenced him to 30 days in jail for the freezing death of his toddler. The story of Hilder's agony about that case and his own father's suicide won the Los Angeles Times a Pulitzer.

Thinking about Hilder's regrets would turn him into a human being -- the kind of judge state senators, apparently, don't want. It's much easier to turn the guy into an uppity judge.

"This has been one of the more uncomfortable hearings we've had. I really felt we were trying to retry a bunch of cases that I'm not qualified to try," said new Senate President Mike Waddoups, a Taylorsville Republican who questioned Hilder's "demeanor" and ultimately voted against him.

And that's how you kill a judicial nomination.

walsh@sltrib.com