But if we place temperament among our core criteria, we cannot leave its meaning indeterminate.īecause judicial temperament is essentially a psychological construct, I propose that we ought to use psychology to understand it. Temperament is not everything we look for we also value intellect, integrity, and adequate legal training. For example, when asked whether there was an ideal judicial temperament, the late Justice Antonin Scalia (in his characteristically pithy manner) replied, “If there is one, I don’t have it.” 6 His successor Neil Gorsuch got the opposite - but equally conclusory - assessment, at one point being dubbed “Scalia without the scowl.” 7īoth approaches - laundry list and cipher - do a deep disservice to a critical measure of judicial fitness. The other approach is to treat judicial temperament as a fundamentally mysterious quality that one does or doesn’t have. 4 Most lists include courtesy, patience, and compassion, but no two lists are the same - and, at the extreme, they capture virtually all aspects of a judge’s personal makeup (e.g., “personality, character, upbringing and education, formative career experiences, work habits, and behavior when interacting with others”). Most often, we simply list desirable qualities and behaviors without articulating what, if anything, unifies them. 3 At the same time, judicial temperament is something no one can quite put a finger on. Judicial temperament is something we think all judges must have: We assess it at all critical junctures of a judge’s career. 1Įlusive as it is important, judicial temperament is notoriously hard to define. T seems to me that temperament is the key to everything else that one does on the bench.
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