Is Justice Blind?
| Author | J. Warren Madden |
| Published date | 01 March 1952 |
| Date | 01 March 1952 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000271625228000109 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
60
Is
Justice
Blind?
By
J.
WARREN
MADDEN
THE
ETHICS
OF
JUDGES
THE
statue
of
the
blindfolded
god-
dess
suggests
that
the
ideal
court
should
decide
its
cases
as
if
the
parties
involved
were
anonymous
and
unseen.
It
should
consider
the
facts
and
the
law
and
arrive
at
its
judgment
in
the
way
in
which
a
law
student
in
an
examination
decides
as
to
the
rights
and
liabilities
of
A
and
B,
given
certain
facts,
and
ap-
plying
the
law
he
is
supposed
to
know.
Thus
any
consideration
of
whether
the
parties
are
rich
or
poor,
young
or
old,
charming
or
repellant,
would
be
elimi-
nated.
In
this
respect,
justice,
as
ad-
ministered
by
judges
and
leaving
out
juries,
is,
in
general,
as
close
to
the
ideal
of
the
goddess
as
it
should
be.
But
as
to
whether
judges
are
blind
in
another
respect,
in
the
sense
of
being
ignorant
of
economic
and
social
facts
and
trends
about
which
they
should
know
in
order
to
decide
their
cases
wisely,
there
is
much
room
for
argu-
ment.
The
honesty
and
integrity
of
most
judges
is
beyond
question.
The
scan-
dalous
occasional
lapses
properly
cause
great
public
resentment,
and
the
culprit
is
heaped
with
obloquy,
as
he
should
be.
But
in
general,
a
party
may
go
into
court
with
confidence
that
the
judge
will
do
his
best
to
decide
the
case
ac-
cording
to
the
facts
and
the
law,
as
he
is
able
to
understand
them.
The
pres-
sures
upon
him
to
do
so are
very
heavy.
His
decisions
are
immediately
the
sub-
ject
of
the
scrutiny
and
criticism
of
acute
lawyers,
articulate
in
pointing
out
their
defects.
The
judge
knows
that
for
any
departure
from
honesty
he
will
be
held
in
disrespect,
even
by
the
lawyer
who
has
won
the
case.
In
the
relative
isolation
of
the
bench,
he
covets
above
all
things
the
respect
of
the
bar,
who
are
his
link
with
his
community.
Whether
the
judge
gets
his
place
by
appointment
or
by
popular
election,
and
even
though
his
past
has
not
been
particularly
dis-
tinguished
for
integrity,
all
the
pres-
sures
upon
him
after
his
elevation
to
the
bench
tend
to
make
and
keep
him
upright.
There
is
a
code
of
ethics
for
judges,
drafted
by
the
American
Bar
Associa-
tion.
It
contains
little
which
would
not
naturally
occur
to
practically
all
judges,
even
if
it
had
never
been
written
into
a
code.
But
it
contains
wise
suggestions
about
the
ethics
of
some
kinds
of
con-
duct,
which
suggestions
may
be
helpful
to
a
judge
when
in
doubt.
The
dishonest
judge
It
is
probable
that
in
the
occasional
case
when
a
judge
is
dishonest,
the
dis-
honesty
is
not
investigated
and
exposed
as
promptly
as
it
would
be
in
the
case
of
other
kinds
of
public
officers,
or
of
private
persons.
There
is
a
customary
respect,
amounting
almost
to
obsequi-
ousness,
in
the
attitude of
lawyers
to-
ward
judges,
which
makes
a
lawyer
slow
to
suspect
wrongdoing
on
their
part,
and
slow
to
believe
that
any
ac-
cusation
which
he
might
make
would
persuade
his
brother
lawyers
and
the
prosecuting
authorities.
If
the
judge
is
dishonest,
as
the
lawyer
may
suspect,
an
accusation
which
did
not
result
in
his
removal
from
the
bench
would
put
the
lawyer
in
the
position
where
no
one
would
hire
him,
for
fear
of
the
preju-
dice
which
the
judge
would
naturally
harbor
against
him.
So
it is
probable
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