Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/245

 Qualifications for Judicial Position By Duane Mowry, LL.B.

IT IS not enough to say what the judicial officer shall not be. Mere negative statements can rarely, if ever, satisfactorily explain or define anything. Such statements are usually out of harmony with a truly constructive policy or seeming. They do not supply the reasonable demands of the inquisitive mind. They are disappointing. In the quest for knowledge of any subject, it is the enlightened view, clear, positive and unequivocal, that is sought. This is informing. It is satisfying. The ideal judge must be a good listener, honest and industrious. Need a more comprehensive definition of the worthy judge in action be suggested? Why does it not meet all of the reasonable requirements of the case? It is true that it is not a technical definition. It does not tread upon the territory of the scholar. It is not even intimated that the judgehead must be learned in the law. How then, it may be asked, can such an unscientific and "loose" definition be justified? The answer is not difficult. Three primary requirements are contemplated by the suggested definition, viz.: the ability to listen, the possession of charac ter, integrity, and the willingness to work. If the court has the patience to listen to what may be said in the wit ness box and at the bar, if he has the qualities of a decided character, a lively sense of justice and equity, if he is willing to labor diligently in order that the truth may be evolved from the law and the facts in the case in hand, so that the legal rights of the parties may triumph, surely such a judge accords with both judicial worthiness and judicial idealism.

But the need of legal learning, of having a liberal education, is not to be minimized. It is of paramount impor tance that the strong judge should come to his judicial responsibilities after he has passed through the schools both of theory and of experience. The judge should be a lawyer who has become pre-eminent in his profession by reason of his hard common sense, a quality which he has shown in the trial of causes; by reason of the varied experiences which his active practice of the law has given him; by reason of his dis position to dig deep and plod long and unremittingly in attempting to solve intricate and difficult problems of law and of fact; by reason of his utter and complete disregard of the personnel of both litigants and attorneys in every case which might be heard in his court; by reason of his ability to absorb every point of merit on either side of every litigated matter coming on to be heard before the court; by reason of his great familiarity, not only with the lawT, but with all debatable matters pertaining to the history of the law and of our country and its varied and increasing institutions. In a word, the really great and good judge should be a student of our country, of its needs and of its demands, as the same may be made manifest by our rapidly developing, increasing, and changing conditions, both under the constitutions and the laws enacted under and by virtue of them. It is of small moment where, for in stance, the occupant of the bench of our national Supreme Court may live or what is his political belief. These