Ethics

Sotomayor's Empathy. Or Not.

By Ed Brayton

This is actually more than a week old, but I somehow missed it completely. The New York Times has the story of a ruling from Judge Sotomayor that certainly did not show anything resembling the empathy Obama says he wants in a judge. And it involves an issue I feel very strongly about, access to DNA testing to prove the innocence of someone convicted of a crime.

Jeffrey Deskovic was convicted at 16 years old for the rape and murder of a classmate that he did not commit. He was freed from prison in 2006, having spent half his life locked up. DNA evidence proved that another man, already in prison for another murder, was guilty of that crime and the man admitted it after the testing matched his DNA.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on June 18, 2009 (boomark / email).