Talk:Judge

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Contents 1 Titles 2 Bench Trial 3 Fictional Judges 4 Lists 5 Appointment / Election 6 Lay Judges 7 Last sentence 8 Cool 9 Authority of judges

[edit] Titles

From the article: "Judges of courts of specialized jurisdiction (such as bankruptcy courts or juvenile courts) were sometimes known officially as "referees," but the use of this title is in decline. Judges sitting in courts of equity in common law systems are called "Chancellors."" In what country? The above paragraph is right below the French description of their title. It's confusing. Is this for French or Americans? Highwind 14:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bench Trial

What does "A court trial is before a judge only." mean? I am a barrister in England and Wales and I have never heard the term "court trial" used in this fashion. Does "court trial" mean (in whatever jurisdiction, I suspect the US) a trial conducted without a jury, in which case this is a definition and should be flagged as such, or does it mean something quite different? Please explain. Francis Davey 13:38, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

In the US a trial where the judge is the finder of fact instead of a jury is commonly referred to as a "bench trial." I'm going to change it to say "bench trial" with a disclaimer that it is a US term. The terminology comes from the "bar" which is the area between the general courtroom and the attorneys; then there is the "bench" where the judge/court sits. Peyna 18:44, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I am familiar with what a "bench trial" is, although the term is fairly rare here. Very few cases are heard with juries and most of those are trials on indictment, for which there is already a term. I am in court about 90% of the time and have never seen a jury while in practice or training. Francis Davey 19:08, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm still not completely satisfied with how this is worded; since there can be bench trials in criminal and civil cases. Peyna 19:48, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify further: Americans use the term "bench trial" to distinguish situations where the judge is the finder of fact, because our default trial is the jury trial. We do jury trials all the time, as you've probably noticed from our movies and TV shows.

Our public policy is that judges and lawyers will become immune or insensitive over time to the pain and suffering of litigants. After all, they see such terrible things in gruesome detail every day, while most people hear only about the occasional shocking case on the TV news. So, our ideal is that a jury will hear the evidence and make findings of fact that reflect the sensibilities of society as a whole, rather than the hardened notions of the typical judge or lawyer. That's why we force practically all able-bodied American citizens to participate in jury duty every now and then. --Coolcaesar 00:23, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Sort of right, except that the majority of cases in the United States never see a jury. We definitely have more bench trials than jury trials. A jury is only Constitutionally guaranteed in criminal cases (which excludes things like traffic offenses and other "minor" offenses), and in Federal civil cases involving more than twenty dollars. Aside from that it varies state by state, but for a variety reasons many civil cases result in either a directed verdict (judge makes the verdict without using the jury, upon request of either counsel) or summary judgment (there is no issue of fact). So while juries are important; a lot of times they're not used. I'm also unsure about your statements about "the hardened notions of the typical judge or lawyer." For instance, lawyers used to be prohibitted from sitting on juries, but in most states there is no blanket exception anymore, because fears about what they might do to the jury turned out to be unfounded. Anyway, we're getting off topic, the article is entitled "Judge". Peyna 01:18, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Our public policy is that judges and lawyers will become immune or insensitive over time to the pain and suffering of litigants. After all, they see such terrible things in gruesome detail every day, while most people hear only about the occasional shocking case on the TV news. So, our ideal is that a jury will hear the evidence and make findings of fact that reflect the sensibilities of society as a whole, rather than the hardened notions of the typical judge or lawyer.

Just a side note: there were several high profile cases of jury trials in France where the jury's findings of guilt were criticized. For instance, in the case of one infamous trial of people suspected of pedophilia, it is suspected that the jury fell for the general athmosphere of "not letting them get away with it", while they should have weighed whether there were proofs (knowing that doubt must benefit the defendant).

Thus, the claim that juries are more sympathetic to defendants than judges are highly dispurable. David.Monniaux 22:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional Judges

judge jules and judge dread exist, but they are not really judges! hence fictional :) Steeev 23:14, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thats why I added "or not real" to the heading! Cheers :-) quercus robur 23:17, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

oops sorry, didnt read before i wrote or look before i leaped  :) Steeev 23:19, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

then again fictional and not real, could be deemed to mean the same thing ;-) Steeev 23:20, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Lists

We have got Judge, which includes a list, and List of jurists, not to mention several separate lists by jurisdiction. Needs sorting out. Any proposals? Cutler 00:42, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

If one day I have time, I'll move the dress of French judges to Court dress, but... David.Monniaux 18:37, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Can someone seperate a page for "Judge" the Anime, which links right here? - i've watched the anime and can start a page, but i'm not sure how to physically create a new page. 1:30 2nd June 2005 (GMT)

[edit] Appointment / Election

Would a section detailing more about judicial appointment / election processes be appropriate here or maybe somewhere else? I've done a little bit of looking and don't see this being covered anywhere on Wikipedia; anyone have any suggestions? I'd be more than willing to get things started. Peyna 18:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lay Judges

Under the heading "Judges in the legal system" it says that Finland makes use of lay judges. This is also the case in Sweden (see http://www.dom.se/templates/DV_InfoPage____754.aspx). My guess is that there are additional countries making use of lay judges, besides Finland and Sweden. These lay judges are in Sweden known as "nämndeman" (pl. "nämndemän"), which usually translated into "lay assessor" (Norstedts English Dictionary).

In the United States, we have some odd differences from state to state. See state court and state supreme court. In states operating under the Missouri Plan, judges are practically always lawyers or at least law-trained to some extent, because otherwise the governor would get bad publicity during his reelection campaign for appointing untrained judges. In states that elect judges directly, there are a lot of lay judges, many of whom are not law-trained and are thus extremely incompetent. The federal government has no explicit requirement that judges must be lawyers, but as a matter of tradition, the President always nominates well-qualified lawyers. --Coolcaesar 20:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last sentence

"In addition, judges although in their official capacity should and are free from bias, however a doctrine called as major premise, assumes that all judges are humans and therefore not infallible." This sentence needs re-writing, but I'm not sure what it means as it stands. Rhion 08:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It means that even though judges officialy are (and should be) unbiased, that major premise doctrine says that they are still human and possibly slightly biased. --Snake712 16:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

You've got to be joking. They're incredibly biased. Not to mention self-righteous. 24.68.180.163 13:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cool

Thanks Wikipedia for helping me reach my search!

[edit] Authority of judges

Some statements about judges in civil law judges are partly misleading, at least as far as the German legal system is concerned. There, judges do have the power to impose injunctive relief, restraining orders, and limited fines for misconduct in the courtroom. Moreover, ordinary judges can hear some cases in which the government is a party, as the definition of "public law" is narrower than stated in the text. In addition, the part of the text which deals with precedence gives a wrong impression: Although not binding, the research on and the reference to precedence is an indispensable part of daily legal practice. Furthermore, I am not quite sure what is meant by the term "making the law" in the text, but the method of analogy is accepted and common, whereby a statutory rule can be extended even to a case which is not expressly dealt with in a statute, if the law is deemed to contain an unintended lacuna. Finally, the inquisitorial procedure is mainly applicable in criminal and public law cases. In contrast, in private law cases, the judge is limited to the facts (and up to a certain extent also to the evidence) as they are presented to him by the parties. I didn't want all these specific caveats to the text itself, but it clearly seems to need a review.