Catholics , Obama, Empathy and the Law

Over at the Catholic Vote there is a great post on this. See Empathy and Law

This part is crucial I think:

A proper role for empathy is even harder to discern in the work of appellate courts, and the Supreme Court is the nation’s highest appellate court. Appellate courts almost never reconsider the facts of a case, but are almost always concerned with questions of law and procedure. Their decisions establish rules of law and procedure that must be followed by lower courts in similar cases, and this authority is, of course, greater in the Supreme Court than in any other appellate court. To call for empathy as a judicial virtue is to suggest that fundamental procedural and legal rules be manipulated for the sake of the well-being of some litigant who happens to inspire the pity of a majority of justices, and with manifold ramifications for the conduct of numerous future cases. This is no way to run a judicial system.

This point is important. I think in a sense liberals that are running off this are very much taking advantage of the popular public's ignorance of the Court. There are reasons why appellate courts do no reconsider the facts. They cannot personally observe the testimony, they cannot observe the demeanor of the witness, etc etc.

Bad idea