It's NOT "empathy" when judges have empathy for the powerful over the powerless

[ck4829]

After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.

http://rightwingwatch.org/content/right-wing-round-58

I expect this trend to reverse soon, as neoconservative financier and crooked business leader, Conrad Black, is going to have his case listened to by the Supreme Court.

[Echo In Light]

1. K&R

[TwilightZone]

2. Well, technically it is empathy, and that's exactly the problem.

Empathy is identifying with the feelings and/or situation of another.

I'm quite certain that Roberts and Scalia empathize with the people they side with. They certainly identify with them more than they do with those who they rule against. As usual, the Republicans are being their typical hypocritical selves, decrying empathetic judges while ignoring their own.

Now, if you want to talk about sympathy, that's another story.

[Blue Meany]

3. I always thought judges should have to spend some time in

prison before serving on the bench. It can be a real education and certainly increases the empathy factor.