My Personal Brexit: Courthouse Security Checks

The story is now an old one.

In Western societies, there is now a tremendous disconnect between the traditional political and business elites and the citizenry. The populations of the West now find themselves ruled by a transnational elite who see tradition, loyalty, and patriotism as primitive, and whose promoters within academia, nonprofits, government bodies, labour unions, NGOs, and the media teach that nations, citizenship, borders, and law defined by elected parliaments are irksome problems to be overcome.

I cannot say exactly when I saw these symptoms first arise in the United States. But more than a decade ago, I was clerking in a federal courthouse. It was a good gig. I was glad to have it. The public—litigants, lawyers, jurors, witnesses,** and visitors—went through the front entrance with a security check. Court officials and employees (including judicial law clerks) went through a back entrance, also, with a security check. One day, early in my tenure, I was going through the security check, and an older man went around me and bypassed screening. The security officer waved him through. After I went through security, I asked the security officer:

Seth: Who was that guy? Why did you wave him through without going through screening?

Deputy U.S. Marshal: That’s Magistrate Judge ___. We don’t screen judges.

Seth: What?—You don’t screen judges? Why not?

Deputy U.S. Marshal: Of course we don’t screen judges. Get real. Security checks are not here to make the courthouse safe for the public. Security checks are here to keep the judges safe from the public.

I am not a radical egalitarian. I am not suggesting that judges should enter courthouses through the main entrance along with the public. Likewise, if there is a line at the security desk, I am happy to have the judges move past me to front of the queue—a judge’s time is more valuable than that of other courthouse staff. Finally, there is nothing wrong with judges having private bathrooms. If judges used the public restrooms, it could create problems were the judges to be seen in the company of parties to a dispute during active litigation, not to mention the fact that many judges are older people who might be particularly vulnerable in bathrooms. But the default rule ought to be that the same rules which apply to the public also apply to the rulers—and that includes judges. Exceptions to the default rule—such as private bathrooms—have pragmatic justifications behind them.

I cannot think of a good pragmatic reason for allowing judges to escape the security check all others must go through—particularly in light of the recent conviction of a federal judge on gun-related charges. As judges escape the everyday burden the law imposes on others, it becomes too easy for them to impose burdens on others which they do not feel. The current system is a bad result which must teach the public to disrespect the judiciary, as it must teach the judiciary to disrespect the public.

The interesting question is—how many judges have ever protested this inegalitarian and deeply un-American policy?

Seth

**In some criminal actions, defendants and witnesses come into courthouses through the (secure) back entrance. 

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Seth Barrett Tillman, 'Courthouse Security Checks,' New Reform Club (Aug. 7, 2016, 7:33 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2016/08/my-personal-brexit-courthouse-security.html>;

My prior post: Seth Barrett Tillman, Souvenir from a recent summer vacation--Brexit Poster: Vote To Leave, The New Reform Club (Aug. 5, 2016, 1:55 PM)