The Republicans seem bothered that Obama believes that a Supreme Court Judge should have the quality of empathy.  They seem to believe that a judge should only be worried about The Law and not worry about fairness or true justice.  Perhaps their model of what a judge should be is Chief Justice John Roberts.  According to an article in The Wall Street Journal (June 19, page A3),  The Supreme Court voted, by a margin of 5-4, that the use of DNA evidence, in the case of incarcerated prisoners, be left to the states.  Justice Roberts wrote the opinion that acknowledged “modern DNA testing can provide powerful new evidence unlike anything known before,’ but Justice Roberts went on to write “a criminal defendant proved guilty after a fair trial does not have the same liberty interests as a free man.”  He went on to say that it remains an “open question” whether “proof of actual innocence” is enough to overturn a conviction after a fair trial.

In other words, Justice Roberts doesn’t seem to think that whether a person is actually guilty or innocent has any importance, as long as all of the formalism of a “fair” trial is in place.  If an indigent defendant doesn’t have a lawyer smart enough to ask for any DNA evidence (if available), that’s the defendant’s problem if he/she is found guilty.

Perhaps someone who has the quality of empathy will think that actual guilt or innocence is important, that someone who is innocent of a crime should not be in jail, even if that person had a “fair trial.”  This might be one of those cases where a “wise Latina” would come to a better conclusion than a privileged white male.