Empathetic or not?

[jreeves]

Lady Justice's blindfold - The Boston Globe
JUDICIAL dispassion - the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences - is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it: "I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God."
Without judicial restraint there is no rule of law. We live under "a government of laws and not of men" only so long as judges stick to neutrally resolving the disputes before them, applying the law, and upholding the Constitution even when doing so leads to results they personally dislike. That is why the judicial oath is so adamant about impartiality. That is why Lady Justice is so frequently depicted - as on the sculpted lampposts outside the US Supreme Court - wearing a blindfold and carrying balanced scales.

Time and again, Obama has called for judges who do not put their private political views aside when deciding cases. In choosing a replacement for Justice David Souter, the president says, he will seek not just "excellence and integrity," but a justice whose "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles," would be "an essential ingredient" in his jurisprudence. In an interview last year, he said he would look for judges "sympathetic" to those "on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless."

When he voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, Obama declared that the "truly difficult" cases that come before the Supreme Court can be decided only with reference to "the depth and breadth of one's empathy," and that "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart."

But such cardiac justice is precisely what judges "do solemnly swear" to renounce. Sympathy for others is an admirable virtue. But a judge's private commiserations are not relevant to the law he is expected to apply.

Do you believe a judge should be empathic when passing out judgments?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

You fail to grasp the lefts absolute stupidity in "feelings" . Feelings are more important than knowledge, then facts, then, well, anything, to the lefts idiotic positions on all matters. They don't think, they "feel".

 

[jreeves]

You fail to grasp the lefts absolute stupidity in "feelings" . Feelings are more important than knowledge, then facts, then, well, anything, to the lefts idiotic positions on all matters. They don't think, they "feel".

If that's true then how could some on the left push for legalizing late term abortions?

 

[KittenKoder]

You fail to grasp the lefts absolute stupidity in "feelings" . Feelings are more important than knowledge, then facts, then, well, anything, to the lefts idiotic positions on all matters. They don't think, they "feel".

If that's true then how could some on the left push for legalizing late term abortions?

Aaah ... the conundrum ... the left supposedly follow their feelings too much according to the right, but the right follows their feelings as well when they legislate based on what they believe is right and wrong. No one uses science, fact, or logic. Thus is the flaw of humanity, it's always feeling that rules.

 

[jreeves]

You fail to grasp the lefts absolute stupidity in "feelings" . Feelings are more important than knowledge, then facts, then, well, anything, to the lefts idiotic positions on all matters. They don't think, they "feel".

If that's true then how could some on the left push for legalizing late term abortions?

Aaah ... the conundrum ... the left supposedly follow their feelings too much according to the right, but the right follows their feelings as well when they legislate based on what they believe is right and wrong. No one uses science, fact, or logic. Thus is the flaw of humanity, it's always feeling that rules.

I'm not talking about politically though. Do you think a Justice should follow their feelings when applying the law? or Do you think they should interpret the law without respect to feelings?

 

[DamnYankee]

Lady Justice's blindfold - The Boston Globe
JUDICIAL dispassion - the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences - is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it: "I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God."
Without judicial restraint there is no rule of law. We live under "a government of laws and not of men" only so long as judges stick to neutrally resolving the disputes before them, applying the law, and upholding the Constitution even when doing so leads to results they personally dislike. That is why the judicial oath is so adamant about impartiality. That is why Lady Justice is so frequently depicted - as on the sculpted lampposts outside the US Supreme Court - wearing a blindfold and carrying balanced scales.

Time and again, Obama has called for judges who do not put their private political views aside when deciding cases. In choosing a replacement for Justice David Souter, the president says, he will seek not just "excellence and integrity," but a justice whose "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles," would be "an essential ingredient" in his jurisprudence. In an interview last year, he said he would look for judges "sympathetic" to those "on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless."

When he voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, Obama declared that the "truly difficult" cases that come before the Supreme Court can be decided only with reference to "the depth and breadth of one's empathy," and that "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart."

But such cardiac justice is precisely what judges "do solemnly swear" to renounce. Sympathy for others is an admirable virtue. But a judge's private commiserations are not relevant to the law he is expected to apply.

Do you believe a judge should be empathic when passing out judgments?

Absolutely not. Empathy is based on emotion.
Etymology: Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathēs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion

Judgments and/or rulings should be dispassionate. As an attorney, Obama should full-well know this. One can only wonder at his audacity to question Roberts' record when he could only come up with 1% of Roberts' decisions that he felt didn't display the appropriate empathy.

 

[Skull Pilot]

the O.P. just described the "activist" judge and that is exactly what Obama wants.

 

[editec]

Lady Justice's blindfold - The Boston Globe
JUDICIAL dispassion - the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences - is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it: "I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God."
Without judicial restraint there is no rule of law. We live under "a government of laws and not of men" only so long as judges stick to neutrally resolving the disputes before them, applying the law, and upholding the Constitution even when doing so leads to results they personally dislike. That is why the judicial oath is so adamant about impartiality. That is why Lady Justice is so frequently depicted - as on the sculpted lampposts outside the US Supreme Court - wearing a blindfold and carrying balanced scales.

Time and again, Obama has called for judges who do not put their private political views aside when deciding cases. In choosing a replacement for Justice David Souter, the president says, he will seek not just "excellence and integrity," but a justice whose "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles," would be "an essential ingredient" in his jurisprudence. In an interview last year, he said he would look for judges "sympathetic" to those "on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless."

When he voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, Obama declared that the "truly difficult" cases that come before the Supreme Court can be decided only with reference to "the depth and breadth of one's empathy," and that "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart."

But such cardiac justice is precisely what judges "do solemnly swear" to renounce. Sympathy for others is an admirable virtue. But a judge's private commiserations are not relevant to the law he is expected to apply.

Do you believe a judge should be empathic when passing out judgments?

A mechanistic application of the law, one applied without regard for how the application of the law effects the society at large, is simply stupid.

The floundering fathers understood that, which is why they created a constitution which left lots of wriggle-room for the courts and Congress to change the constitution, and to interpret the consitution's meaning, too.

Now one can certainly find fault with the interpretation of the law, and one can certainly find fault with laws as they are passed, but thinking that we have a constitution written in 1789 which CLEARLY tells us how we must live our lives TODAY, is preposterous.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Lady Justice's blindfold - The Boston Globe
JUDICIAL dispassion - the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences - is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it: "I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God."
Without judicial restraint there is no rule of law. We live under "a government of laws and not of men" only so long as judges stick to neutrally resolving the disputes before them, applying the law, and upholding the Constitution even when doing so leads to results they personally dislike. That is why the judicial oath is so adamant about impartiality. That is why Lady Justice is so frequently depicted - as on the sculpted lampposts outside the US Supreme Court - wearing a blindfold and carrying balanced scales.

Time and again, Obama has called for judges who do not put their private political views aside when deciding cases. In choosing a replacement for Justice David Souter, the president says, he will seek not just "excellence and integrity," but a justice whose "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles," would be "an essential ingredient" in his jurisprudence. In an interview last year, he said he would look for judges "sympathetic" to those "on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless."

When he voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, Obama declared that the "truly difficult" cases that come before the Supreme Court can be decided only with reference to "the depth and breadth of one's empathy," and that "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart."

But such cardiac justice is precisely what judges "do solemnly swear" to renounce. Sympathy for others is an admirable virtue. But a judge's private commiserations are not relevant to the law he is expected to apply.

Do you believe a judge should be empathic when passing out judgments?

A mechanistic application of the law, one applied without regard for how the application of the law effects the society at large, is simply stupid.

The floundering fathers understood that, which is why they created a constitution which left lots of wriggle-room for the courts and Congress to change the constitution, and to interpret the consitution's meaning, too.

Now one can certainly find fault with the interpretation of the law, and one can certainly find fault with laws as they are passed, but thinking that we have a constitution written in 1789 which CLEARLY tells us how we must live our lives TODAY, is preposterous.

And yet NONE of your hero leftoids will bother to create amendments to said document, instead reading bullshit into already existing portions of it. Our founding fathers knew it would need to be changed, and they provided for that.

 

[DamnYankee]

Lady Justice's blindfold - The Boston Globe
JUDICIAL dispassion - the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences - is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it: "I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God."
Without judicial restraint there is no rule of law. We live under "a government of laws and not of men" only so long as judges stick to neutrally resolving the disputes before them, applying the law, and upholding the Constitution even when doing so leads to results they personally dislike. That is why the judicial oath is so adamant about impartiality. That is why Lady Justice is so frequently depicted - as on the sculpted lampposts outside the US Supreme Court - wearing a blindfold and carrying balanced scales.

Time and again, Obama has called for judges who do not put their private political views aside when deciding cases. In choosing a replacement for Justice David Souter, the president says, he will seek not just "excellence and integrity," but a justice whose "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles," would be "an essential ingredient" in his jurisprudence. In an interview last year, he said he would look for judges "sympathetic" to those "on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless."

When he voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, Obama declared that the "truly difficult" cases that come before the Supreme Court can be decided only with reference to "the depth and breadth of one's empathy," and that "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart."

But such cardiac justice is precisely what judges "do solemnly swear" to renounce. Sympathy for others is an admirable virtue. But a judge's private commiserations are not relevant to the law he is expected to apply.

Do you believe a judge should be empathic when passing out judgments?

A mechanistic application of the law, one applied without regard for how the application of the law effects the society at large, is simply stupid.

The floundering fathers understood that, which is why they created a constitution which left lots of wriggle-room for the courts and Congress to change the constitution, and to interpret the consitution's meaning, too.

Now one can certainly find fault with the interpretation of the law, and one can certainly find fault with laws as they are passed, but thinking that we have a constitution written in 1789 which CLEARLY tells us how we must live our lives TODAY, is preposterous.

And yet NONE of your hero leftoids will bother to create amendments to said document, instead reading bullshit into already existing portions of it. Our founding fathers knew it would need to be changed, and they provided for that.

17 of which have been ratified (6 have not). the most recent of which were from 1961 through 1992. Pretty preposterous, huh?

 

[Nik]

None of you know jack shit about law.

Despite all the wailing and moaning from the right, we have judge made law in this country. Its called common law. Judges, in that vein, decide what the right rules should be to have the best effect on society at whole. Empathy is a necessary ingredient for this.

Any of you heard of Brown v. Board of Ed? That was judicial activism. Want to claim that somehow segregation is ok and the court shouldn't have struck it down?

Ever heard of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld? Thats the court case that ruled that Congress gave the President authority to hold prisoners via the AUMF. Where exactly in the AUMF does it mention holding prisoners? It doesn't. Judicial Activism. So why aren't you who are clamoring for "dispassionate" judges also clamoring for the closing of GITMO.

Activist judges has become an asinine buzzword for the right to mean "decisions we don't agree with".

 

[strollingbones]

empathic judges etc is what brought us the terry shivo bullshit...empathic is not a legal merit....the ussc is suppose to rise about all but the us consititution....wouldnt that be nice

 

[Nik]

empathic judges etc is what brought us the terry shivo bullshit...empathic is not a legal merit....the ussc is suppose to rise about all but the us consititution....wouldnt that be nice

Actually, Christian fundamentalists are what brought us the Terry Schiavo bullshit. The USSC denied the certs for Schiavo. There is a difference between empathy and being emotionally overwrought.

 

[AllieBaba]

When judging, judges should apply the law and the law only.

When sentencing, they are allowed to consider more ephereal aspects of the case, and I think empathy has a place there.

 

[Nik]

When judging, judges should apply the law and the law only.

When sentencing, they are allowed to consider more ephereal aspects of the case, and I think empathy has a place there.

Sure. So tell us Allie, where does common law come from?

 

[AllieBaba]

Define "common law".

 

[Nik]

Umm...common law as constrasted with statutory law. For a simple primer see this: Common law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The US has a rich history of such law, and in fact much of our current property and contract law is common law. Do you want to throw out 500 years of tradition, 200 years of American jurisprudence, and a rich history of judge-made law? Why do you hate our traditions so much?

 

[AllieBaba]

Judges aren't supposed to make law. THey're supposed to enforce it.

 

[Nik]

Judges aren't supposed to make law. THey're supposed to enforce it.

Incorrect. See the past 500 years of Ango-American jurisprudence. Again, why do you hate our American traditions?

 

[AllieBaba]

I re-iterate, judges aren't supposed to make law. THey do it, but they're wrong to do so.