Is a Judge Closer to an Umpire or an Advocate?

Liberals are touting President Barack Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s “empathy” approach to adjudication as a good and positive thing for the court system.

Both Obama and Sotomayor have strongly indicated that they consider the personal background, skin color, economic conditions and so on very important and relevant factors as to how a judge will rule on various cases.

This philosophy has even revealed itself as Sotomayor ruled in favor of a city which refused to promote “too many” white firefighters when more firefighters scored well on a promotions test.

But in Stuart Shepard’s latest StopLight, he humorously illustrates why the empathy over law and Constitution approach is just plain wrong.

Would you want the umpire of a baseball game calling the game based on the personal situation of the players…or based on their performance with regard to the rules?

And the issues the Supreme Court deals with are far more weighty and important than a baseball game.

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