In the News

The Rational Hysterics: Republicans won't beat Sonia Sotomayor by attacking her as too darn human.

May 26, 2009 | Slate.com

Dahlia Lithwick: "the case against Sotomayor on this front is so ideologically loaded, and selective, that it quickly starts to look hypocritical."

Jeffrey Rosen: The Sotomayor Nomination

May 26, 2009 | The New Republic

"Of course, Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed to the Supreme Court"

Editorial: Filling the bench

May 19, 2009 | Lebanon Daily News [PA]

"Obama has said he wants to name justices who have the “quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles.” Scoffing voices were quickly raised. “Lady Justice doesn’t have empathy for anyone,” one critic said tartly. What a sad and wrong-headed judgment. The president understands what we all know: justice, and justices, are to be even-handed, not insensitive."

Judicial Empathy Is Not Anarchy

May 18, 2009 | Talk Left Blog

"Appellate opinions written by conservative judges characteristically show great empathy for beleaguered employers who seek protection from overly sympathetic juries in discrimination cases, for unfairly burdened businesses confounded by environmental regulations and harassed by the threat of punitive damages, for police officers and prison guards. Consumers, employees, criminal defendants, environmentalists, victims of corporate greed and governmental abuse: not so much empathy for them..... Empathy -- for the little guy, for the powerless, for the meek and mute and broken members of society who aren't noticed by conservative judges, who can't afford teams of lawyers to plead their cases -- empathy allows their voices to be heard: voices of the ordinary and common, voices of the frightened and dispossessed, voices that deserve the attention of Supreme Court Justices."

Letter: Sowell showed little 'empathy'

May 16, 2009 | Appeal-Democrat [CA]

"Judges are not computers; they must understand how the U.S. Constitution and laws were written to alleviate real problems people face in many different circumstances."

THE DREADED 'E' WORD

May 12, 2009 | Washington Monthly

""empathy" became a terribly scary word to conservatives, who said it was "code" for "judicial activism." (The irony is, phrases like "judicial activism" and "strict constructionist" are themselves code words for the right.) It led the erudite chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, to tell a national radio audience last week, "Crazy nonsense empathetic! I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!""

Letter: Sowell column distorts meaning of empathy

May 12, 2009 | Lima News

Published letter from Judging the Environment's Glenn Sugameli: "The headline of Thomas Sowell's May 5 column, " ‘Empathy' versus law," is a false dichotomy that befits a column that bizarrely distorts the meaning of empathy and then obscenely compares President Barack Obama's "rhetoric" with "the law that gave Hitler dictatorial power.""

Letter: Rule of law needs judicial empathy

May 7, 2009 | Chattanooga Times Free Press

Published Letter from Judging the Environment's Glenn Sugameli: "“‘Empathy’ or the Constitution ?” (editorial, May 5) mistakenly condemns any judge who dares to “empathize with others … those personal feelings should be carefully set aside in court in favor of complete impartiality and justice.” There is a reason why judges are people, not computers. They must understand how the Constitution and laws were written to alleviate real problems faced by people in many different circumstances. . . ."

LETTER TO EDITOR: Don't rule out empathy

May 7, 2009 | Washington Times

Judging the Environment's Glenn Sugameli: "Judicial Confirmation Network counsel Wendy E. Long's Op-Ed relies on the bizarre, unjustifiable premise that judges must be devoid of empathy in order to avoid lawlessness."

Editorial: Choosing a New Justice

May 7, 2009 | New York Times

"the attacks have already begun, many aimed at Judge Sotomayor and beyond the pale of reasonable debate. She is being called insufficiently intellectual despite her stellar academic credentials."

Empathy essential to justice

Mar 31, 2009 | Daily News Tribune [MA]

Published Letter to the Editor from Judging the Environment's Glenn Sugameli: "Driscoll also appropriately responds to conservative attacks on Obama's allusion to Hamilton's empathy: "Apparently realizing that laws impact upon people's lives is a liability to a conservative reading of the law." Indeed, interpreting ambiguous laws and the Constitution requires understanding their purpose and history through empathy - the ability to walk in someone else's shoes and to see from different points of view."

Confirmation battles-- Re “Obama to influence our courts”

Mar 19, 2009 | Los Angeles Times

Published letter to the Editor from Judging the Environment's Glenn Sugameli: "Following the law often requires judicial empathy -- being able to see the world from other people's points of view."

How should Obama choose his court appointees?

Feb 23, 2009 | Christian Science Monitor

Published Letter to the Editor from Earthjustice's Glenn Sugameli responding to a editorial and explaining how "Interpreting the Constitution, treaties, and statutes often requires being able to see the world from other people's points of view. "

Editorial: The Scales of Justice: The Supreme Court ponders a case of power plants vs. fish

Dec 3, 2008 | Washington Post

"Lawmakers who drafted the Clean Water Act were concerned that relying too much or too often on cost-benefit analysis would allow companies to circumvent regulation. Congress inserted cost considerations in several provisions of the law and used different language (e.g., "best practicable control technology currently available") when it wanted the agency to consider costs. A plain reading of the intake provision strongly suggests that Congress intended the agency, first and foremost, to identify the best technology -- not the best technology for the money. ...The approach outlined by the appeals court is reasonable and provides the least convoluted reading of the statute. If the industry does not like this result, it should go to Congress and ask that the law be rewritten."

Editorial: Fish to the Slaughter

Aug 29, 2008 | Editorial: Fish to the Slaughter

"The Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., has a long history of problems, including radioactive water leaking from its aging fuel pools and emergency sirens that regularly fail in tests. About a billion fish are also killed each year when the plant sucks water from the Hudson River to cool its enormous condensers. Environmental organizations like Riverkeeper and Scenic Hudson have raised the alarm about this for years. Indian Point’s owner, Entergy, has clung to archaic technology that pumps up billions of gallons of water a day, runs it once through the plant and back into the river. Little fish and fish eggs go through the cycle, get overheated and die."

Currently reading page 14 of 14.

Previous Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Sotomayor for Justice is a project of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund

© 2010 MALDEF | Privacy Policy | Powered by ARCOS | Design by Plus Three