Judges Commons^™

Judicial Ethics And Identity, Charles Gardner Geyh

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article seeks to untangle a cluster of controversies and conundrums at the epicenter of the judiciary’s role in American government, where a judge’s identity as a person and role as a judge intersect. Part I synthesizes the traditional ethics schema, which proceeds from the premise that good judges decide cases on the basis of facts and law, unsullied by the extralegal influences of identity that make judges who they are as human beings. Part II discusses the empirical evidence, and the extent to which identity influences judicial decision- making in ways that contradict tenets of the traditional schema. Part …