Commentary: Celebrate America’s judges on Independence Day

Now is the time to recognize the quality of our federal and state benches.


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  • | 2:10 a.m. July 3, 2025
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Nick Allard

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone...”

 Those words written by Thomas Jefferson are found in the Declaration  of Independence among the 27 paragraphs listing the grounds for the American Revolution. If transcribed into today’s parlance, most would seem ripped from our daily headlines.

The fundamental concept of judicial independence came into being in England and Wales in 1701 with the enactment by Parliament of the Act of Settlement. That statute recognized the principles of security of judicial tenure by establishing that High Court Judges and Lords Justice of Appeal hold office during good behavior.

So important was this principle to our Founders that it was embedded in Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which created a separate but equal judicial branch, bolstered by lifetime appointment of federal judges and salary protections.

Judicial independence is reinforced by the separation of powers, checks and balances. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78 arguing for ratification of the Constitution, “The complete independence of the courts is particularly essential in a limited constitution. “

The invention of democracy and the role of judges can be traced back to ancient Greece. It is the subject of Aeschylus’ classical play the Oresteia, as well as related mythical stories about the Trojan War, in Homer’s epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

Notably, the final part of the Oresteia trilogy concludes the cursed murderous history of the House of King Agamemnon. It culminates by supplanting the whimsical selfish power of Gods, royalty and outcomes driven by serendipity, power, force, greed, immorality, human revenge and retaliation. Instead,  a dispute is resolved by a fair unbiased judge applying the law, and a jury determining the facts.

Then there is “The Judgment of Paris.” 

According to legend, three powerful female goddesses urged Zeus, king of the gods, to judge their bitter dispute over who was the most beautiful; Hera, Zeus’s wife, and Athena and Aphrodite, his daughters. Zeus wisely recused himself.  He suggested that the matter be referred to Paris, a prince of Troy well known for fairness and detachment in judgment.

Each of the goddesses tried to bribe the judge. Hera offered Paris the power to rule empires and Athena offered unmatched wisdom. But Aphrodite, goddess of love and passion, offered Helen, the most beautiful and desirable of mortal women, to Paris.

Paris chose Aphrodite and carried Helen off to Troy, starting a war between the Greeks and Trojans.

The moral of the story is that a judge’s acceptance of a bribe, and the corruption of judicial independence, is bad for everyone. 

In the U.S., the ideal of independent, impartial and fair jurists has evolved over 250-plus years into a heretofore bedrock constitutional norm if not minimal expectation.

A series of decisions at the beginning of the Republic, over the 34 years that John Marshall served as chief justice firmly established the authority and role of the federal courts and the Supreme Court.

The profound principles established by the Marshall court which reinforced judicial independence included the famous nuanced landmark 1803 precedent of Marbury v. Madison.

That decision affirmed the Supreme Court’s authority to review whether laws passed by Congress were constitutional, a power not expressly mentioned in the Constitution.  

The Marshall court also ruled that it could review decisions from state courts that posed constitutional issues. To this day this early case law vests an enormous power in the judicial branch that gives it equal status with the legislative and executive branches. 

Notwithstanding the historical primacy of judicial independence and the respect and gratitude that judges deserve, Americans are not bashful about criticizing government officials, and judges are not shielded from public barbs. Americans long have exercised their constitutional right to complain about judges, as did H.L. Mencken,  who observed, “A judge is a law student who grades his own examination papers.”

Judges know that criticism comes with the job. They also live and cope with the constant increased risks that unfortunately are attendant to their service as jurists. 

However, as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts recently warned, a sharp unprecedented increase in four areas of illegitimate activity cross the line of propriety. That is, according to Roberts, violence, intimidation, disinformation and threats to disobey court rulings undermine the principle of judicial independence. 

The U.S. Marshals Service reports that threats and hostile communications targeting judges tripled in the past decade, with more than 1,000 investigated threats to federal judges alone in the past five years. 

In 2005 and 2020, relatives of federal judges were killed by assailants intent on hurting the judges who had presided over their cases. In 2022 and 2023, state judges in Wisconsin and Maryland were murdered in their homes. Each instance constituted a targeted attack following an adverse ruling issued by the judge exercising ordinary judicial duties.

Roberts also warned of the dangers of political interference, taking issue with “public officials [who] … have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges – for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.”

In 2018, Roberts criticized Donald Trump after he referred to a judge who ruled against his administration’s asylum policy as “an Obama judge.”

In 2020, Roberts also rebuked Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, for issuing a veiled warning to Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, during a demonstration outside the Court. “Statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” Roberts warned at the time.

Now is the time to recognize with admiration and respect the prevalent quality of our federal and state benches.

That includes appreciating the courage it routinely takes for judges to fulfill their sworn duties.

We should educate the public about how our legal system provides ample recourse to appeal and other viable time-tested avenues to challenge court decisions. 

The Fourth of July is an apt occasion to celebrate and recommit to America’s judges who serve as the cornerstone of democracy and are a formidable redoubt against autocracy. 

This commentary is excerpted from a longer essay which may be found in full at https://www.ju.edu/law/law-newsletter-archive.php


 

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