I find it very telling that people in our nation will criticize, and even BASH members of Congress past and present, and people will outright BASH sitting and past Presidents....but somehow have the utmost reverence for state and federal level court judges. Judges are elected, for the most part (at the state level). Judges at the state level who aren't elected are appointed. FEDERAL judges are appointed by Congress. They have to have a CONGRESSIONAL confirmation hearing. Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents have to be elected. There is no other way to become a member of Congress, or a U.S. President. Nobody can be "appointed" a member of Congress by some higher authority.
I don't see any member of society, any journalist or reporter, or really ANYONE using the term "honorable" or “your honor” for members of Congress.....but damn does society LOVE to appeal to the lowest denominator when referencing members of Congress! People will even threaten Congress members, use the nastiest insults towards them or as a reference for members of Congress....but don't you DARE question or insult a JUDGE!! How did we get here where we see elected or appointed Judges as the holiest of holies??
"Your honor", "the honorable judge (insert name here), these are such special terms that apply only to judges even though they go through a process to obtain their jobs that is 100% political, and we all know we don't use these terms for any other elected or appointed person. What is it about judges that we as a society are soooo scared to question the usage of the terms "honorable" and "your honor"? What evidence is there that a judge is more honorable than literally ANYONE else in society?
So, let us get into this, because this is a much needed discussion. Mr. Will Lee (Twitter handle @MidnoirCowboy) is a really cool guy who covers the Cook County Circuit Court - Crimnal Division regularly for the Chicago Tribune. Will and I are BOTH journalists. We both regularly report on different ends of the criminal justice system. I report on what the Chicago Police Dept is doing, and he covers the beginning of the criminal court process known as Bond Court.
The job of ANY journalist is to report known facts, and in doing so, to make society question things. Not everything is as it appears to be, and that includes usage of traditional societal norms. What makes traditional societal norms so beyond reproach and questioning? What we have seen in recent years and even more in the current day, is a more hard-right bent to fascist authoritarian rule in the U.S. I recently asked my colleague, Will Lee, in his Sunday Bond Court Twitter thread why he uses the term "honorable" for judges.
Here's that tweet. I wanted to know if he uses it because the Trib demands he use it or if the judges were intimidating him. This is a fair question, given our government's history of using intimidation towards the press, and corporate willingness to bow to government threats and intimidation.
The replies I got were from three of Will's followers, and were unsurprisingly insulting and juvenile. The replies appealed to the concept of being "an adult", your basic conservative ad-hoc snide attempt at appeal to authority. Almost the full exchange is attached here....
The above exchange is just one piece of evidence in a mound of evidence that can be found throughout the U.S. with regards to logical fallacy. We call this fallacy ad verecundiam. Authoritarian ideology relies on appeal to false authority . According to Joe/Jane Q Pubic, who is an expert on the issue of (insert topic), (insert thing here) is true. Therefore, it is true, and how DARE you question it and state a need for evidence to prove it!!??
I got curious. I wanted to know who else out here in the world dare ask this same question of why we treat judges with such reverence and decorum as if they are above all in the world around us and above reproach when plenty of evidence exists that judges commit corrupt acts. My first hit came from Quora, an open forum for people to ask all kinds of questions about almost anything the human mind can fathom.
Of course, someone claiming to be a police officer chimed-in without showing evidence that he is actually a cop or ever was. Even if he was, he naturally appealed to authority and norms without showing that his appeal to norms and authority have any basis by way of evidence.
Then a person claiming to be an Attorney in his profile responded, a guy using the name Paul Dezso deHolczer. This individual also appealed to authority and norms, and like others appealing to authority and alleged "high standards", he also showed no evidence.
The BEST and perhaps, most honest answer came from a man using the name William Welch. Welch made a statement that holds true as a more general fact known to those in the legal profession, and anyone who has observed the legal profession and the courts for many years.
I want to take a moment to say that Welch should have taken time to be clear that alcoholism is a mental illness, and as such, not a vice, because a "vice" refers to bad character. Mental illness is not attached to good or bad character, it is attached to a medical brain disorder. Judge Vnicent F. Leahy wrote about his experience battling alcoholism in a JStor piece.
The U.S. Courts website has a link to the 20-page "Code of Conduct for United States Judges" Remember, federal judges are congressional appointees, making this a political job. One would think this Code of Conduct would be longer than 20-pages. WHO does this particular code of conduct apply to? See the snippet here from the Code of Conduct For United States Judges.
Review of this Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges does noting to answer the question at hand of why and how ANY judge at the state or federal level is "honorable".
A search of the State of Illinois Courts website under the term "Decorum" only reveals a Supreme Court Courtroom Etiquette guide, a State Supreme Court Rules guide, and a list of cases under those listings. Nothing there is helpful to this question. The current version of the Cook County, Illinois Circuit Court website shows that even the Chief Judge, Timothy Evans, doesn't even use the term "honorable".
A search at the Cook County Circuit Court website under the term "decorum" was similarly of no help in answering this question. However, it DID reveal that the Cook County Circuit Court does not have a government e-mail address, and is instead using gmail.
There IS a standing Court Room Decorum Order entered by Judge Thaddeus L. Wilson at the site, but it does not mandate the use of words such as "honorable", or "your honor".
Now I turn to scholarly papers Google Scholar hits on the search term "Court Room Decorum" provided a long list of hits. Most all of those hits are hidden behind a paywall, the first few were for "Hein Online" and "Jstor". There is THIS: 37 J. Am. Jud. Soc. 44 (1953-1954) Court Room Decorum by Joseph H. Hinshaw. This is not helpful since we are no longer in the 20th century, nor are we in a 1950s world. Life has moved forward, and we've learned new and better things supported by evidence.
None of the scholarly papers speak to this issue of usage of the terms "honorable" and "your honor". Though one paper comes close, it doesn't address the issue in the end. Given the lack of evidence, one can only reasonably surmise that usage of "honorable" and "your honor" in reference to judges is nothing more than a delusional demand to be seen as more important than one truly is.
While it IS true that to be a judge, one has to attend law school, graduate, pass the bar exam, and then gain some years of experience before one can successfully convince voters to put you on the bench, or convince Congress to appoint you during a confirmation hearing, none of those things carries with it any notable elevation above the rest of society to a place of earned and unquestioned honor such that court rooms should have to rise when a judge walks in, or use the honorifics “honorable” and “your honor”. The fact is that society simply will not collapse if we stop this game of pretend and simply use the title “Judge”, “J.D.”, or “Juris Doctorate”.