Justice in America: How it Works - How it Fails by Moran Russell

Author:Moran, Russell [Moran, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Coddington Press
Published: 2011-06-20T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8– Judicial Decision-Making– All Day, Every Day

Making decisions is part of the deal called life– and it’s often the most difficult part. Every day

fills our in-box with a pile of matters that require a decision, some important, some trivial, and

without the need to face these decisions, life would be an extended vacation. Because we all like

vacations we often try to steal an unscheduled holiday by putting off the decision, as it can

always wait until tomorrow. We take these little unscheduled vacations every day because, let’s

face it, making decisions is not pleasant. What if it’s the wrong decision? If I do this, that might

happen; if I do that, this might happen. If I do nothing today, nothing will happen– at least not

today. We channel our inner Scarlett O’Hara and say: “ I’ll think about that tomorrow.” Nothing

beats a bad something, so perhaps I’ll do nothing. If you don’t refinance your mortgage today,

interest rates won’t change that much by tomorrow. Should you sell some equities and go into

bonds? Heck, Warren Buffet says to ignore market timing,so there’s no need to rush. Should

you pay that parking ticket or fight it? Your answer date is 2 weeks from now, so put it on

tomorrow’s pile. Sure you have heard the familiar saying: “A decision to put off a decision IS a

decision.” Now that’s an easy decision to make. We do this because it’s easy, and usually we

can get away with it without our world blowing up. It is a psychological luxury that we can

afford.

Judges can’t afford that luxury, although some think they can. Judges specialize in doing that

which most of us try to avoid: make decisions. The absence of a decision is another way of

saying“delay.” Delay means time wasted, money spent, lives disrupted, and justice not served.

Decision-making may be difficult, but it is what any judge does throughout the day. Some of

these decisions can be monumental, and some merely vexing to the decision maker. But decide they must, for that is essence of the job of judging.There’s even a special word for it: while we

make decisions, judges render decisions.

Lord Eldon was an English judge famous for his inability to make a decision. He was once

asked to make a decision in a case that he had heard 6 years earlier. He had completely

forgotten about the case, and it had to be reargued. In another case he took 20 years to decide on

a will contest. Defending his famous delays he once said that he “…always thought it better to

allow myself to doubt before I decided, than to expose myself to the misery, after I had decided,

of doubting whether I had decided rightly and justly.” 76 William Hazlitt, the great English critic

and essayist, took Lord Eldon head on. He saw Eldon as a judge who “…hugs indecision to his

breast and takes home a modest doubt or a nice point to solace himself with it in protracted

luxurious dalliance. Delay seems, in his mind, to be of the very essence of justice. He no more

hurries through a question than

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