It's because he's better at empathy than us. :)

Your argument is with English, not me.

Our argument is with your specific views on the meaning of words.

Other sources[1] define empathy as "feeling what another person feels" and sympathy as "having compassion for a person without necessarily feeling what they feel". In that case, the judge is clearly empathizing with the defendant, and not merely sympathizing.

[1] http://grammarist.com/usage/empathy-sympathy/

Can you see any dramatic irony here?

People use words in a variety of ways - communication: a search for a language that is also yours!

Their username may contain a hint...

Ascribing my disagreement to "combativeness" is both combative and presumptive. I've said exactly what I meant, and why.

is the act of describing something as combative itself a combative thing?

It is.

does this mean people are "inable" to call something combative when it's combative?

Trolling is a art.