“Trump even went further, saying on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he’d have similar concerns over a Muslim judge, since he has proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States.”
I’ll say one thing for him, he’s definitely an equal-opportunity asshole.
(edit) Oh, for crying out loud:
“his campaign spokeswoman argued on Monday that it also would be acceptable to accuse a female judge of bias on the basis of gender.”
Exactly. Also, @fche, even conservative judges have made similar points. Whoda thunkit?!
during his 2006 confirmation hearing, Alito asserted: “When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.” Similarly, during Thomas’ confirmation hearing, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) asked, “I’d like to ask you why you want this job?” Thomas replied, in part, “I believe, Senator, that I can make a contribution, that I can bring something different to the Court, that I can walk in the shoes of the people who are affected by what the Court does.”
Which I take to mean, in trump’s world, that a female judge would not be able to rule on a case involving rape.
Sadly, trump’s memo to his campaign staff encouraging his surrogates to say whatever-the-fuck about this case, or the judge’s heritage, or that the journalists are the real racists in this situation, has clearly been read and disseminated.
So now that the tables are turned, I wonder if Iraqis are saying to themselves, “See–those Americans need a strongman to keep them in line!”
If you applaud a court system whose functioning relies on judges’ personal life experiences, you’re pushing the cart off the cliff. Not only is justice not blind, it is to come with a compact for the judge to see herself as part of the story. Madness. (I of course wouldn’t endorse Alito’s comments either.)
Yeah, I’d like to see him try. I bet he’s not man enough to do it.
Anyone claiming that their experiences aren’t going to affect their judgement is lying to you. People of a majority, or powerful class [in the broadest sense] have the luxury of pretending their biases aren’t personal, as they are culturally default. In context, a person of a minority class celebrating the fresh perspective they bring to a stagnant majority-dominated institution is a specific and healthy thing.
If that were the legal system we wanted, we wouldn’t have trials by jury, and especially not jury nullification (where people can be acquitted of a crime because the law is unjust).
The legal system is built to have a human element in it, and for good reason: we’re illogical, emotional, deeply flawed creatures, and the laws that we enact are just as flawed, and a robot just wouldn’t understand that.
Since La Raza refers to the multiethnic mix of Spanish and native peoples that makes up the majority of Americans (North and South) you are literally correct.
How can any system function in the absence of reliance on peoples’ personal life experience? Learning the law in the first place is inarguably a personal life experience without which judges would not be able to do their jobs. Learning a natural language would also qualify.
Besides that fairly obvious point, there’s a more serious blindspot in your position. If justice were truly “blind” – if the application of law was a completely mechanical process – then it would more fruitfully be fulfilled user a computer algorithm than a human being.
But that is not the case – judging requires the application of human judgment which can only be refined through examination of one’s life experiences. A richer pool of life experiences translates pretty directly into a larger body of observations on which to base one’s judgments.
As an example, you think there would (or should) be no difference in the quality of deliberation and ruling between two judges?
-one who has never touched a gun in his life
-one who learned to shoot from his father, owns a gun, and regularly hunts and shoots at ranges
We don’t have a court system run by automatons, nor should we. ALL judges bring their personal life experiences to the table, not just women and minorities. I’d much rather have a diverse judiciary that is aware of this fact than a judiciary made up of straight white males who are delusional enough to think themselves some idealized paragon of objectivity.
I doubt Trump’s thinking would be as generalized as that. I feel like it’s more of a “if I (personally) have said or done anything that would be disliked by [insert group here], then they would obviously be biased against me and I should be able to treat anything said by them as meaningless”.
I do find it amazing that even Fox News has people saying “No, wait, that’s not how it works!”
So basically only Trump can judge Trump. Even God couldn’t judge him.
And yet you chose to misrepresent Sotomayor’s statement in defense of the idea that Trump is being unfairly treated by a completely unrelated judge.
Your biases are showing.
The only person who can judge Donald J Trump is Donald J Trump and Donald J Trump declares Donald J Trump not guilty of anything criminal ever, for ever and ever Amen.
Donald J Trump also knows that Donald J Trump has never done anything that requires Donald J Trump to ask anyone, including G*d, for forgiveness.
Delve deep into the Trumpian mind and you will find nothing but…
Just curious – how do you interpret the ideal in the U.S. that legal determinations of our guilt or innocence be rendered by a jury of our “peers”? What does peer mean to you in that context, and more specifically, what is it about our peers that makes them the most appropriate renders of judgments about us?
I’m curious if anyone backing Trump’s position would agree then that by extension white judges shouldn’t be allowed to judge black people?
I doubt it. Those backing Trump’s position so far clearly believe (perhaps without actually thinking it through) that straight white men are the best deciders because they’re the (supposedly) objective ones. You pointed out an obvious, gaping hole in their logic, but that’s not a hole that those in the majority can usually even see.
So, which judge would you think got it right
IANAL. I’m satisfied with the overall outcome. The intermediate (“API copyrightable”) ruling was not obviously-to-me right or wrong.
Sounds like a subjective judgement, not an objective one.
Besides, I didn’t mean to ask “What do you think the right answer was” (though perhaps I worded it poorly). What I meant was, “Given a judge who understands the subject matter through personal experience and one who doesn’t, which one is more likely to come up with the right answer?”
