Judge Sotomayor is right: Ethnic heritage can affect judgement
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Anonymous
Right. Trump was merely reacting to unfair rulings by this particular judge. It's reasonable to question this judge's background could produce bias against him. |
Anonymous
So many logical fallacies in this argument. 1. He must be white because he's a Trump suported Appeal to Probability and Converse Accident. 2. Judge gave rapist six month sentence for Rape because he's white and defendant is white False Cause and Argument from Fallacy. You have no evidence that the judge made the defending decision because the defendant was white. You're also assuming because the judge is white there was some sort of connection that persuaded his position to give a lenient sentence. 3. Red Herring The case involving the convicted rapist has not bearing in the discussion at hand and is irrelevant. Trying to divert the topic 4. Affirming the Disjunct Because you assume he is white - which you have no way of telling - he must be against diversity. A or B. It A therefore can't be B. You're not sure what PP's ethnicity is, let alone his positions of diversity. Yet you're assuming he's white and therefore against it. I could keep going honestly... |
Anonymous
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I don't really understand Trump's bias argument. Trump likes to say that Mexican Americans and Hispanics like him and agree with him because his policies help all Americans. They will bring jobs to all Americans. So why would Trump assume that the judge is biased against him? Wouldn't the judge also agree that Trumps policies help all Americans? Why assume that the judge disagrees with his policies, whereas other Mexican-Americans don't?
That is beside the fact that the judge is a plain old red-blooded American who was born in the United States. |
Anonymous
What exactly were the "unfair" rulings? There is a quote from Trump's attorney praising this exact judge a month ago because he sided with Trump's attorneys in delaying the trial until after the election while the plaintiffs argued that justice delayed is justice denied. The only ruling Trump can point to is that the judge did not grant him complete summary judgment dismissing the case (apparently the judge did rule in his favor and granted summary judgment on some issues). Denying summary judgment does not mean the judge ruled against Trump - merely that there were disputes over material facts that needed to be fleshed out at trial. Considering that Trump and the plaintiffs disagree on a number of material facts - I don't see why ruling that the trial can proceed on some issues is an "unfair" ruling. |
Anonymous
Judge Sotomayor was born in the Bronx and grew up in Puerto Rican communities in the South Bronx. We can't talk about her Puerto Rican heritage because she was born in the United States? She is very proud of her heritage and thinks that will bring fresh perspective in her rulings. |
Anonymous
Puerto Ricans are Americans. You can celebrate Puerto Rican heritage like celebrating NY heritage, and it's all American. |
Anonymous
Are you being deliberately obtuse? The judge's heritage is only an issue if her actions as a judge are based on her personal prejudice; i.e. she always ruled in favor of litigants who were Puerto Ricans from the Bronx. Think about the judge in the Kim Davis case who was deeply religious himself but sent her to jail for not doing her job. He may have personally believed that gay marriage was wrong, but was able to act in an unbiased manner and uphold the law that said she needed to issue marriage licenses. |
Anonymous
Because his statements are only true when it benefits him. And if a judge's race can make one bias, then every defendant should have a judge of the same race, maybe even gender and sexual orientation. All those cases of white judges presiding of black defendants must've been bias.. OH, wait! A white college student is convicted of rape and gets 6mo. A black 16 yr old student gets convicted of rape (wrongfully) and gets 6 yrs. Maybe it's true then. All these white judges must be biased against non whites. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/wrongfully-convicted-brian-banks-disgusted-brock-turner-ruling-article-1.2663595 |
Anonymous
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Of course your background/life experiences affects your judgement. Duh. |
Anonymous
But Trump keeps saying that "the Hispanics" love him. He is doing great things for them. So why would he assume that this "Hispanic" (the judge) doesn't love him too? Could a Trump supporter answer this? |
Anonymous
Not really. First of all, I didn't particularly like Sotamayor's comment. I get what she meant by it, but thought it was poorly expressed at best. But in any case, her point was that a wide variety of perspective and life preexistence could improve the functioning of the federal judiciary. In that sense, having ethnically diverse judges decreases "bias" in the statistical sense. Trump was saying that anyone who has a particular background that he has arguably insulted is inherently "biased," as in "prejudiced" against him. That's a dumb and racist thing to say. You're now making a slightly softer criticism than Trump, which is that it is possible someone's background could cause them to be biased. And yes, that's true. But that doesn't suddenly make it reasonable to accuse a particular person of ethnic or nationalistic bias based solely on the fact that they disagreed with you on a pretrial motion. And let's be clear that any somewhat informed lawyer will tell you that the rulings that have gone against Trump have been on routine pre-trial issues. Trump is trying to play up that there's something shocking about the fact that many judges allow you to substitute named plaintiffs in class actions. But there's nothing unusual or notable about that decision even if you think Curiel got it wrong, so to immediately trash him and stock ethnic tensions is exceptionally befitting of someone who wants to be President, as even many people who have endorsed Trump have already said. |
Anonymous
I don't like Trump's comments either. But I don't think they are racist. He never said all Mexican are biased against him. He said this particular judge hates him and he is proud of his heritage and that's fine. It is entirely possible that this judge's background could cause him to be biased. Trump said his lawyers and some legal experts he consulted didn't think the rulings have been fair, particularly allowing the chief plaintiff to withdraw but not dismissing the case. Their defense was built on attacking this key witness and the judge granted the withdraw. |
Anonymous
but trump's own lawyers have stated that the judge has been fair. |
Anonymous
I would have agreed with you based on only the rant while he was stumping. I think in the Tapper interview he unambiguously states that there is an inherent problem with a Mexican person (or a Muslim person) judging him. And as Paul Ryan and several other prominent republicans have said, that's pretty much the textbook definition of racism.* * As discussed on a separate thread, its actually the textbook definition of national origin discrimination, but let's set pedantry aside. |
Anonymous
But that is all just more bullshit from Trump. He knows nothing about the law or the courts. Curiel's rulings were by the book rulings. Trump asked for summary judgment and the judge went point by point and granted it on a few points (e.g. no injunction against TU since it is not currently operating), but not on the points that are in dispute and will have to be decided at trial. Nobody who knows anything about the law would expect full summary judgment in this case. Almost any judge would have made the same rulings. There is nothing at all surprising or questionable about Curiel's rulings so far in the case, and if there were, then he and his lawyers should appeal the ruling, not accuse the judge of prejudice simply because of his ethnic heritage. Here are the facts and commentary from legal experts: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/06/07/sorry-donald-trump-the-mexican-judge-was-just-following-the-law/ When a judge grants a summary judgment, it’s usually for a narrow and straightforward issue, said Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California at Davis School of Law. For example, a judge may grant it if someone is suing a defendant who has immunity from that specific lawsuit. Or a judge may grant it if someone was bringing an asbestos lawsuit against a manufacturer — but the manufacturer wasn’t making any products during the time that person claims they were injured. “In any kind of complex factual case, it’s very hard to get summary judgment,” Johnson said. “The [Supreme] Court has made it clear that only in certain, limited cases will summary judgment be granted.… We have a Constitution that requires civil cases to be submitted to a jury if there’s enough fact and dispute — and that’s a pretty important right to most people.” |