The American JudiciaryBaldwin, Simeon E. (Simeon Eben)
History
The American Judiciary
Baldwin, Simeon E. (Simeon Eben)
Courts -- United States; Law -- United States -- History
The members of the Supreme Court and of the Circuit Court of
Appeals of the United States have always worn black silk gowns.
The members of the Supreme Court of South Carolina have worn them
from a time antedating the Revolution. The New York Court of
Appeals in 1877, at the request of the bar, preferred through
David Dudley Field, adopted the practice,[Footnote: In 1903 it
was extended to _nisi prius_ courts held by justices of the
Supreme Court.] and the same thing has since been done by
appellate courts in several other States. In one of these,
Massachusetts, they had been worn in the colonial era. About
1760, Chief Justice Hutchinson introduced gowns and cassocks
there on the Supreme bench, and also gowns, bands, and tie-wigs
for lawyers who were admitted as barristers of the Superior
Court.[Footnote: "Life and Works of John Adams," II, 133, note,
197.] The latter soon abandoned these, but gowns were retained
by the judges until 1793.[Footnote: Publications of the Colonial
Society of Massachusetts, V, 22; Amory, "Life of James Sullivan,"
I, 261, note.] In North Carolina gowns and bands were worn by
the members of the Supreme Court in 1767.[Footnote: Proceedings
of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, VI, 389.] In New
Jersey, the bar were at one time required to assume them by a
rule of the Supreme Court, but the rule was vacated in 1791.
At the first opening of the Supreme Court of the United States,
in 1790, Chief Justice Jay wore a gown with salmon-colored
facings on the front and sleeves, of the style then used by
Doctors of Laws created by the University of Dublin, from which
he had received that degree.[Footnote: 134 U. S. Reports,
Appendix.] It has not since, in that or any other American
court, been the practice for judges to wear academic hoods or
other decorations on the bench.
* * * * *
Counsel, in addressing the court, rise and begin with "May it
please the Court," "May it please your honor," or, before a court
in bane, "May it please your honors." The term "you" would never
be used to a judge on the bench; but that of "your Honor" would
be employed.
Great pains is taken by the officers in attendance to prevent
anything on the part of the audience that could in any way
disturb the proceedings, such as loud conversation or unnecessary
moving from place to place.
There is a good deal of antique form in the manner in which,
under the direction of the clerk, prisoners are arraigned and
juries are made up or "impanelled" for the trial of a cause.
In charging a jury, the judge commonly rises and the jury do the
same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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