Before Judge as Baseball Umpire, What Analogy Did People Use?

Well, "the judge as IBM machine," of course!   But then it was used as, "judges aren't IBM machines."  This I learned by reading a brief essay on "The Law and the Changing Times," by the University of Alabama law school's dean in 1963--a very difficult year for our nation and my former school, of course.  The dean had the fortitude to suggest that judges might actually do something other than coldly apply "the law."

I've been reading the Alabama Law Review in the 1950s and 1960s for a short essay on UA's history with civil rights.  And wow, what great stuff's in there -- further testimony that if you want to know something about a people, look at their literary output.  There's a tribute to Hugo Black in 1963 (in part to make amends, I'd imagine, for being snubbed on the occasion of his class' fiftieth reunion in 1956); there's an address by William O. Douglass to the Alabama ACLU in 1969; and there's a most fascinating study of law students' attitudes towards civil rights in 1969.  And then there's Dean Harrison's 1963 speech.

Never know where technology's going to appear in speeches or judicial opinions, do you?!  One of these days I'm going to blog about the images of photography in an antebellum opinion.  Most exciting!

Comments

[keith]

Well, before *that* they certainly used the judge and baseball umpire analogy, which appeared in several editorial cartoons at the time of FDR's Court-packing plan -- as did the even better (from a normative sports hierarchy perspective) analogy of football referee.

[Matthew Reid Krell]

What are you planning to do with this essay?

[Alfred]

Ah, Keith--I should say before the *most recent* judge as umpire analogy!

[Matthew Reid Krell]

Keith, are you arguing that a football referee is a better analogy for the role of judging, or that football is normatively better than baseball?

I don't know that I argue with either assertion. I just want to make sure I understand you.