Passage A discusses the views of the economist and political thinker Thomas Sowell.
Passage A
Cosmic justice is the concept of justice through the eyes of an omniscient judge (like God). It wouldn't judge an act in isolation, but would rather judge an act in relation to all the constraints, difficulties, and influences that person has been exposed to through life.
Since this is an impossible standard to achieve in real life, Sowell thinks the justice system should not (but does) aspire to deal with this type of justice.
We're only equipped to deal with the crimes committed, not the fraught childhoods that created the criminal.
Passage B
Cosmic justice isn't the result of a process in which a trial was fairly conducted (that's traditional justice).
Cosmic justice is about recognizing all the various influences and inputs that flow into this eventual trial ... systemic disadvantages, absentee parents, institutional discrimination, etc.
It's a foolish endeavor for humans to be trying to achieve this sort of justice since softening punishments based on external factors (such as a troubled childhood) would lead to bad outcomes like a reduction in deterrence and an increase of crime that harms innocent people.
Summary
Both passages have the same central topic: cosmic justice.
They have pretty sympathetic views, especially because Passage A is basically describing the theories of the author of Passage B.
Both authors think it would be foolish for our criminal justice system to attempt to dispense cosmic justice.
The author of A does so more because of the hopeless complexity of the task.
The author of B does so more because of the practical effects of doing so (less deterrence / more crime) as well as the conceptual irrelevance of thinking that "X's bad childhood" should be something we consider when sentencing X for murdering Y, given that Y had nothing to do with X's bad childhood.