Judges are human and experience emotion when hearing cases, though the standard account of judging long has denied that fact. In the post-realist era it is possible to acknowledge that judges have emotional reactions to their work, yet our legal culture continues to insist that a good judge firmly puts those reactions aside. Thus, we […]
All Work By Terry A. Maroney
The Persistent Cultural Script of Judicial Dispassion
In contemporary Western jurisprudence it is never appropriate for emotion””anger, love, hatred, sadness, disgust, fear, joy””to affect judicial decision making. A good judge should feel no emotion; if she does, she puts it aside. To call a judge emotional is a stinging insult, signifying a failure of discipline, impartiality, and reason. Insistence on judicial dispassion […]