Poll: Americans Believe Background Does Not Determine Judges' Decisions

Justice is NOT Colorblind

In a perfect world, Justice would be colorblind;judges and jurors would never have to decide cases involving racial profiling. However, in an imperfect world judges are known to give men of color and white males different sentences for the exact offenses. It has been proven repeatedly by researchers and yes, even the Justice Dept. has noted that Latinos and African Americans are more likely to get stiffer jail/prison time for breaking the law than White males. White males are more likely to be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service in the place of imprisonment for non-violent offenses. Not so for persons of color. So yes, as much as we shudder at the idea that judges may look at a persons socioeconomic background, gender, and color to determine a ruling, it's a fact.

Most of the judges on the supreme court are White elitist conservatives and this may in fact determine how they rule on certain cases.

Poll: Americans Believe Background Does Not Determine Judges' Decisions

Let's see, if that was the case every decision handed down by the Supreme Court would be a 9 to 0 and since that is not the case, I wonder how the judges reach their opinions. Just look at a lot of the cases they review where it is a 5 to 4 vote, each judge came up with their own opinion bases on how they interpret the constitution. So I would say that they form their opinions base on something, perhaps it’s their upbringing, their gender, their interpretation of the law and constitution, their race, and even political affiliation, whatever it is will affect their opinion. No matter how hard they try there will always be something in their lives that influences the way they think which will have an influence on their opinion. All we can hope for is that they are objective and form their opinion on the letter of the law and not let any of those factors identified above influence their judgments and we all know just how hard that can be. So, yes those kinds of things do play a role in how a judge rules.

Yea. Except when the judge says it will!

Judge Sotomayer thinks that her language, upbringing, skin color and gender brings something special to the table. I thought that was why they taught objective law so you wouldn't have to bring anything "special" to the bench. Then all who are equally qualified to judge would be able to judge equally. There is no room in the law for activism or bias no matter how well intentioned.