http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html WASHINGTON â In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge âmay and will make a difference in our judging.â In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion â often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day OâConnor â that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases. âI would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasnât lived that life,â said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obamaâs list of potential Supreme Court nominees.
The oath a Supreme Court Justice must take. "I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) 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 as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." Where does it say race or gender should be taken into account? It absolutely, 100% does NOT say that either one should be taken into consideration. In fact it says the polar opposite of her view. Nice try but your argument fails. When your views are so liberal that they are at odds with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you are pretty far out. We have not even touched on the fact that she thinks the Court of Appeals is where policy is made. If we are going to made policy from the judical bench and use sex and race as the basis of our rulings, it does not leave a lot of room for what the Court is supposed to do--which is interpreting the law. Lady Justice wears a blindfold for a reason. I want to see if the lefties can figure out why that is.
humans are emotional animals. it is impossible to eliminate some emotional bias. laws are never black and white, some judgement is required to decide the grey areas. otherwise they could just use a computer to decide cases.
And I would have no doubt that a white male would reach a better conclusion than she would. You see, I'm not a racist, it's just the richness of my life experiences that cause me to reach that conclusion.
Why not just put computers on the bench? They could be programmed devoid of anything but logic... The right wing has no problem with the bias of right wing jurists like Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. Five Catholics on the bench? That is not a problem because they are right wing? I wonder if Obama considered Harriet Myers...