Pithy, you sure do see the world differently from the way I do. For you, the important thing in her comments is that the limited number of cases she cites may invalidate her 'findings.'
For me, the important thing is that her attempt to justify her position with a limited number of findings raises the question of: 'why is she so desperate to prove that there will be distinctions in how judges from different backgrounds vote, that she will do what some part of her trained-thinker-self knows is false - cite an inadequate amount of evidence to support her position?'
Given: her statements as quoted by you in these last two posts; as well as her other recent troubling suggestion as to the superiority of wise Latina ladies over wise white guys; , taken together with that troubling case, Pappas, which I cited in my comment on the last post; and relating all of those together, - here's my seat-of-the-pants-call on what we can expect to see from J. Sotomayer:
I think J. Sotomayor has issues with the concept of empathy. I think she has trouble determining 'subjective' emotional states from 'objective compassion/empathy.'
I think her concept of 'empathy' is twisted, somehow.
I predict that J. Sotomayer is going to show the same kind of 'empathy' that J. Sheilah Martin showed in 'Alberta v. Kellogg Brown & Root 2006 ABQB 302'
to a pot-head Syncrude worker who squawked that his rights were violated when he was asked to take a random drug test - and, surprise! he failed the test. He had been informed prior to employment with KBR that drug tests went with the territory.
J. Martin's ruling was over-turned on appeal: Alberta v Kellogg Brown & Root 2007 ABCA 426
I can't object to someone stating facts or taking pride in their cultural heritage. However, she does overstate the facts: XX judges decide cases differently from XY ones, but there is no way it makes a difference in most cases or even in most contentious ones.
The proposition that human rights means employers can't take action against drunks and drug users is among the dumbest things Canadian law has ever held. Of course, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously held that it was discrimination to prevent somebody from driving because they had no peripheral vision.
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