Word: benching
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Last week Judge Andrew Christie made a dramatic announcement from the bench: "An individual in Pennsylvania has confessed to committing all six crimes." Ronald Clouser, 39, who closely resembles the priest despite a 14-year age difference, had already admitted committing three robberies in Pennsylvania. An industrial engineer, Clouser was on leave from his job with the U.S. Postal Service because of emotional problems. Clouser's lawyer stated that his client wanted to "exonerate Father Pagano of acts for which he was wrongly charged." Said Clouser: "Father Pagano has unjustly suffered for six months." He added...
...using as an excuse a lone footnote in a 1970 Supreme Court decision suggesting that the Seventh Amendment right to a jury may be limited by "the practical abilities and limitations" of jurors. But earlier this month U.S. Supreme court Chief Justice Warren Burger joined a growing number of bench and bar leaders who question whether modern juries can understand, much less fairly decide, complex, protracted cases...
...Rendell, not for integrity, legal ability or judicial temperament. "Instead," says Rendell, "these questions are asked: What has the lawyer done for the political party nominating him? What has he contributed to the party in time and money?" The result, say Philadelphia's lawyers, is "a sad bench...
...enters his small, drab courtroom through its single door. White says he deplores the lack of a private entryway to his chambers; it means he has to come in the same way as spectators, lawyers, witnesses, defendants, everybody. Only a few feet of space separates the lawyers from the bench. That is not enough for histrionics, but then there is no jury to sway. There is only Judge White, and he is more interested in a rapid recitation of the facts than impassioned pleas or oratory...
Moran, who has been on the bench for twelve years, is known for running a strict court; with 450 cases a year, he has to. "The way to irritate Moran," says the judge about himself, "is to ask for continuances." He is a one-man show: he does all his own legal research and wrestles with his hard decisions alone. "I can't bounce things off other people to help me," he says. "A judge lives a fairly lonely life." A practicing Roman Catholic, he has eight children. Child custody cases leave him drained. "We are asked to play...