March 2021 Hot Topic — The Secret Life of Judges
Speaker: Claudia Bonnyman, retired Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman and LWVNashville member.
Judge Bonnyman shared her candid observations of the judiciary. Chancellor Bonnyman served three decades in Davidson County’s Chancery Court system, including 16 years as a judge.
Citing the purpose of court as the non-violent resolution of disputes, Chancellor Bonnyman noted that Chancery Courts do not try criminals but may get involved in issues that affect prisoners. She discussed a couple of such cases, one addressing whether the poisons used to execute prisoners inflict cruel and unusual punishment, and one addressing whether the records of a private prison company are private or not.
Although judges are frequently compared to umpires, in describing their role, Chancellor Bonnyman, finds this comparison to be simplistic and somewhat inaccurate. Rather than umpires, judges are servants of the law. Unlike umpires, judges often disagree about the rules, and the law’s complexity causes judges to have varied interpretations. The umpire analogy implies that judges can ignore bias, but she believes it’s important to recognize bias instead, including one’s own, in applying the law. In many cases, the law itself and Supreme Court decisions that guide later decisions, may leave gaps in interpretation which judges must fill. She also discussed the role of “common law,” the legal wisdom that has been distilled over the years. She noted that, although court proceedings are evidence-based, love, faith, loyalty, and empathy are all qualities that cannot be ignored, and are, in fact, vital to judicial proceedings. She emphasized the importance of judges applying the law even when they personally disagree with it. Those who don’t do a disservice to the judicial system.
Chancellor Bonnyman discovered the hard way that some of her methods of weighing facts in the courtroom don’t work so well when applied to family dynamics. Having a husband and son who are passionate advocates for certain causes made her realize that her detached reactions to their ideas wasn’t helpful at home.
Although the public thinks that the courtroom is the most important place that legal work occurs, in actuality some of the most vital work happens in other places. The role of mediation and discovery are as important as what occurs in the more visible courtroom setting. Chancellor Bonnyman described petitions for name changes as a type of case that gave her the most joy. In most such cases, the petitioner had an important reason for wanting a different name. She cited examples of people who chose to change names that were demeaning, or to evade a stalker, or for gender reassignment. One of her favorite stories was of an elderly African American woman who had no birth certificate and couldn’t find accurate records of her parents’ names. Helping that woman establish a legal identity enabled her to get a Social Security card and also vote for the first time.