Judges and empathy

I might be wrong, but it seemed to me that the Republicans accusation that Sotomayer would not be a good judge because she has empathy, and has experience as something other than a rich white man who has led a life of privilage, was recognized by most people as a ridiculous argument.

A person w/o empathy has a personality disorder. What kind of person would say the Supreme Court should be composed of sociopaths, narcissists, etc.

When the supreme court ruled that it is not unconstitutional to execute someone who had been convicted of a capital crime, when evidence had come to light proving their innocence, as long as the trial was conducted properly, the conservatives I worked with insisted it couldn't be true. Since it had been widely reported in the news media, they obviously did not keep up with the news. Should something like this have to be explicitly spelled out in the constitution to know that the founders of our country did not intend this interpretation?

http://www.ajc.com/news/lawmakers-try-for-national-114188.html

Metro Atlanta / State News 4:40 p.m. Wednesday, August 12, 2009
By Bob Keefe

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A federal judge ruled July 17 that Congress never authorized Lake Lanier to be used for drinking water when the lake was created with federal funds in the 1950s.

As a result, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson ruled, Atlanta has been illegally tapping the lake for decades, taking water from the Chattahoochee River that should have flowed to Alabama and Florida. Magnuson ordered that Atlanta’s allocation of water from the lake revert to 1970s levels if Congress doesn’t approve a solution within three years.

Georgias, mostly Republican, complain about the judges ruling, saying that it needs the water. (I guarantee you, a lot is wasted.) But to rule on the basis of Georgia's claims of needing the water, rather than the law, would be an application of empathy, and Republicans say that shouldn't happen. So they shouldn't be complaining.