Civics Break: A Course on the Judiciary with Duke Law and Citizen Travelers

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This content is brought to you by Travelers. A slideshow presentation. Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute. A Series on Civic Engagement. 

Slide: Civics Break: A Course on the Judiciary with Duke Law. Constitutional Foundation and Rule of Law. Logos: Citizen Travelers (service mark). Bolch Judicial Institute, Duke Law. Civics Break.

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JANICE BRUNNER: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. I'm Janice Brunner, Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement for Travelers, and I'm happy to welcome you this afternoon to our special Citizen Travelers at the Travelers Institute program with Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law. 

Citizen Travelers is our aggressively nonpartisan initiative to empower Travelers employees to take part in the civic life of their communities while building leadership and professional skills. Our democracy depends on informed and engaged citizens.

When people better understand how our democracy works, they're better equipped to engage in civil dialogue, take constructive action and invest in their communities, all of which is good for business. It's with this in mind that we are pleased to host a series of programs on the judiciary with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke University Law School. This first course in our series of four explores the rule of law and the constitutional foundation for the U.S. judicial system.

Before we begin, I'd like to share a disclaimer about today's program.

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Slide: About Today's Webinar. Text: This webinar is supported by Citizen Travelers, the civic engagement initiative of The Travelers Indemnity Co., for informational and educational purposes only. The non-partisan views expressed by the speakers and/or the Bolch Judicial Institute, and its employees are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Travelers or any of its employees. Travelers disclaims responsibility for any publication or statement by any of the speakers and/or Bolch Judicial Institute. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate.

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I'd also like to invite you to take the pre-course survey that is available through the link in the chat, if you haven't already accessed it through the QR code that was available on the pre-show slide. I'd also like to ask you to submit questions now and throughout the program. Drop your questions in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. 

With that, I'm thrilled to be joined today by our amazing guest. 

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Slide: Speakers. Portrait photos of two women. The left woman has long blond hair and wears a black suit. Text: Janice Brunner, Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement, Travelers. The right woman has short red hair and wears a coral blouse. Text: Melinda Vaughn, Deputy Director, Bolch Judicial Institute. 

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Melinda Vaughn is Deputy Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Melinda oversees the development and implementation of educational programs, conferences, events, communications and multimedia projects designed to support and strengthen the judiciary and to improve public understanding of the rule of law and the role of the judicial branch. 

She is also Managing Editor of Judicature, a scholarly journal about judging produced by the Institute for Federal and State Judges. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Now we'll turn it over to Melinda to tell us more about the rule of law and the foundations of the judiciary.

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Logo: Civics Break. Text: The Rule of Law and the Foundations of the Judiciary, presented by the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law School. Logos: Duke Law, Bolch Judicial Institute. 

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MELINDA VAUGHN: Thank you so much, Janice. It is so exciting to be here with you all today. I'm just honored that I'm here and that you are interested in this topic. It's one that's really important to us. I'm Melinda Vaughn. I work at the Bolch Judicial Institute, a nonpartisan center at Duke Law School that works to strengthen the rule of law through education and research. 

Today's program is part of our Civics Break initiative, which provides short civic education courses for adults that can be done during a lunch break. And today's session focuses on the rule of law and the constitutional foundation of the U.S. judicial system. So, we'll have a few questions and polls during the presentation.

So watch for those and please respond if you can. And feel free to write down any questions that you have. We'll have some time at the end of today for some questions. And then in our last session on March 24, we'll have a federal judge and a state court judge who can answer the questions that I can't answer.

I am not a lawyer or a judge. And I don't even play one on TV. So the tough questions we'll save for the judges.

All right. So let's get started.

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Slide: Foundations of the U.S. Government. On the upper right there is a painting of a constitutional convention and below there is the partial text at the top of a document, We the People. 

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In writing the U.S. Constitution, the founders made good on their commitment in the Declaration of Independence to create a government in which we the people are governed by a system of laws rather than the whims of our political leaders. 

The signers of the Constitution thought deeply about the kind of country they wanted to build and the kind of country they did not want to build. The Constitution reflects their belief in the rule of law, that a system of laws could protect individual rights and liberties and prevent any one person or branch of government from becoming too powerful.

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Quote, The very definition of Republic is, "an Empire of Laws, and not of Men." President John Adams, Thoughts on Government (1776). On the right is a painting of President Adams in a black suit, ruffled white collar, and with white hair on the sides of his head and bald in the middle. 

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President John Adams believed that the best government was one of laws, not men. It's a famous phrase you may have heard. In fact, the purpose of the rule of law is to constrain the people who serve in powerful positions at all levels of government and society, and to prevent any one person or branch of government from gaining total authority. So today we're talking about the judicial system's place in our constitutional republic, its role in protecting the rule of law, and its responsibilities as the third branch of our government. 

I think we have a poll here that we might launch if we can. And the question is, just when you hear the phrase the rule of law, what words come to mind? And maybe this is something you can put in the chat, too, the Q&A. I'm curious to hear just the words that come to mind when you hear rule of law.

Make sure I can see the answers here. So I'm going to actually go ahead, and we'll skip to a video here where judges talk about the rule of law. So in your mind, think about what you think the rule of law is. And then we're going to hear from some judges.

They talk and think about the rule of law often because it's their job to interpret and apply the laws of our country. And in the video, they talk about what it means to them. And essentially, I think you'll hear it's still sort of an abstract and aspirational concept and an ideal that our nation is still working to achieve. So let's hear the video.

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A video plays. Text: Court Shorts. Rule of Law. A clapperboard closes. A large book titled, Rule of Law, settles onto a gray surface and opens. Quote, I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all our basic rights. Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Text: Rule of Law. 

Judges face us against a dark blue background. Text: Jennifer Choe-Groves, U.S. Court of International Trade.

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I would describe the rule of law as fairness. It is a set of rules that everyone needs to abide by. 

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Text: Judge Thomas Hardiman. U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. 

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We can't have peaceful interactions with one another without the rule of law. 

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Text: Chief Judge Colleen McMahon, U.S. District Court, New York, New York. 

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Our social compact is based on the idea that we are, each and every one of us, accountable to the law. 

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Text: Rule of Law In Your Life. 

Text: Judge Duane Benton, U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

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Your right to swing your fist stops just short of my nose. And that's what the rule of law is meant to do is define that boundary between expression, freedom, liberty, and everything we want to do, and when we hurt others. 

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Text: Judge Jill Otake, U.S. District Court, Honolulu, Hawaii. 

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For example, this morning I went to buy a breakfast sandwich. And everything that I did to get that sandwich was related to the rule of law in some way in the sense that I was able to cross the street safely because I knew that the people driving their cars were going to stop at the stoplight. And I had trust that they were going to do that because there would be consequences under our law for that. 

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Text: Chief Judge Scott Skavdahl, U.S. District Court, Casper, Wyoming. 

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I can get up in the morning and know that the dollar will be accepted down the street at the grocery store. I can go to the post service and expect that I can retrieve my mail and that someone won't take it or that someone won't view it without my permission. 

I then go and buy the breakfast sandwich. I know that the company I'm buying the breakfast sandwich from has to follow the rule of law with regard to food regulation. So I know that the food I eat is going to be safe. The company similarly can't overcharge me because there's going to be penalties for that.

It affects our quality of life in that we're able to sleep at night knowing that tomorrow morning we'll wake up, the stock market will be working, the speed limits will be enforced, the laws will be applied to each and every one of us.

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Text: Rule of Law and the Constitution. 

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One of the great things about the rule of law is the protection of minority rights. Our Constitution has embedded within it a counter-majoritarian principle. What the Founding Fathers said was to protect us against the tyranny of the majority. 

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Text: Judge Karen Schreier, U.S. District Court, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

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The most important thing that I felt from taking the oath was to make sure that I applied the rule of law in a fair manner to everyone. 

And what that means is that 51% of the people, or 90% of the people, can't deprive the minority of certain inalienable rights-- the right to worship, the right to speak, the freedom of the press, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

No matter what their background, no matter where they came from, no matter what they look like. And that's what I try to do every day is to apply the law fairly and evenly to every party that's before me.

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Text: Judge Robert Summerhays, U.S. District Court, Lafayette, Louisiana. 

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We are bound to follow the law. The law is the statutes, the law that is written by people who are elected by the people. And we have to comply with that law. We have to follow the Constitution. 

New citizens swear an oath, not to the flag, or to the president, or to America, but to the Constitution, to our supreme law of the land.

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Text: Rule of Law and Civilization. 

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The rule of law means that everybody understands what the law is, and everybody also understands that they will be held to that law, and that there's no way of getting out of that, including the government. 

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Text: Chief Judge Diane Wood, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh District. 

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Rule of law means that the laws are public. People know what they're expected to do, and you can rightfully hold them to that knowledge. Now I'm not saying you could go out in the street and give a quiz about the U.S. code to every person who's walking by, but the public nature of the law is critical. And the public nature of the judicial process is critical. 

After reading a lot about Greek history, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, all the way forward up to the present day, it was interesting to see what made civilizations thrive and what made civilizations fail. And the only civilizations that thrived were civilizations that emphasized the rule of law.

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MELINDA VAUGHN: Great. And I found some of your answers during the video. And I think a lot of you had the exact right ideas in mind. Guiding principles for equity, for justice, laws that provide accountability. So you all had some really good answers.

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Slide: What is the law? Text: Rules, treaties, statutes, acts, ordinances, laws, regulations, and legislation created by a legislative body and carried out and enforced by an executive body. Courts don't make law, but they are charged with interpreting it. There is a row of United States Code books at the top. 

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When we talk about the law, in this course, we're using it as an umbrella term, and it includes all the rules, treaties, statutes, acts, ordinances, laws, regulations and legislation that are created by a legislative body like Congress or your state legislature and carried out and enforced by an executive body, like the president or the governor's administration. All the laws in our country must fit within the framework set out by our Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land and the ultimate source of our law. In other words, no law-- state, federal or local-- can restrict or conflict with rights delineated by the U.S. Constitution.

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Quote: "The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source." Justice Hugo Black. Reid versus Covert (1957). A black and white photo of Justice Black in a suit. 

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black once wrote, "The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source." And the source of the Constitution's power comes from we the people. And we, in this sense, is a big word. We're a big country. And we're tremendously diverse. From the very beginning, our political discourse has been characterized by sometimes vehement disagreement and frustrating compromises. 

We the people have always disagreed and probably will continue to disagree about what the law should be and the meaning and the impact of the laws that we have. But that's by design. That's the work of democracy. By establishing core principles and processes for working toward acceptable compromises, the Constitution allows us to live and work together mostly peaceably.

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Slide: The U.S. Constitution. Text: The Constitution outlines the government's structure. First three articles describe the main branches of government. Article 1: legislative branch. Article 2: executive branch. Article 3: judicial branch. On the right is a photo of the Constitution. 

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So let's talk a little bit about the Constitution. It shapes nearly every aspect of our domestic law. And it's quite short. Even with its 27 amendments, it's only about 7,500 words. So, I mean, I bet there are insurance policies that are longer than that. That's maybe the length of a long newspaper article. It's both the oldest and one of the shortest constitutions in the world, so it really provides more of a general outline than a detailed blueprint of government.

The first three articles spell out the three main branches of the U.S. federal government. So, Article I outlines the role, structure and process for electing the legislative branch or Congress. Article II outlines the process for electing a president and the role of the executive branch. And Article III outlines the judicial branch and the Supreme Court of the United States. 

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Slide: A Balancing Act. Text: Three-part (tripartite) system deliberately distributes power among several government. Each branch has specific powers to "check" the other branches. On the right is an icon with a triangle that has a person at the top, scales on the bottom right, and a government building on the bottom left. 

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So, this is a three-part or tripartite system of government. And it's designed to distribute power among three branches of government to prevent any single person or entity from gaining too much power. Each branch has the ability to check the other two branches and maintain that power in certain ways. 

For instance, Congress is the legislative branch and is responsible for enacting laws and funding the government. Congress can also confirm or reject presidential nominees to judgeships and to senior agency positions within the executive branch. And in exceptional circumstances, Congress can impeach and remove the president, judges and justices, and agency officials.

The president heads the executive branch, which carries out and enforces laws. The president can veto legislation created by Congress, which can prevent those bills from becoming law, unless Congress can override those. And the president nominates heads of federal agencies and federal judges.

In the third branch, the judiciary, federal judges and the Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and the Supreme Court and lower federal courts are charged with interpreting and applying the laws that are passed by the legislative and executive branches. And as they do this work, the courts can overturn laws that they deem unconstitutional.

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Slide: Judicial Review. Text: The power of the judiciary to review and determine the constitutionality of laws. Video link: https:// Y.O.U.T.U. dot B.E. slash underscore D.A.O.E.B.Y.P.S. 9 E question mark S.I. equals S.A. 8 Z.P.S. 1 3 Z 2 M 9 9 2 j. On the right is a weathered pamphlet with a large drawing of a man in judges robes and the Text: Chief Justice Marshall. Engraved for the Analectic Magazine published by M. Thomas. 

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So, the judiciary's ability to determine whether actions taken by the executive or legislative branches are constitutional is known as the power of judicial review. This power was not written into the Constitution. I'm going to play, I think, another little video that talks about where this power comes from. My terrific colleague Eric, the man behind the screen and getting the video going. All right, here we go.

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A video plays. Logo: Civics Break. Text: Judicial Review. The judiciary's power to determine the constitutionality of laws. On the right are white columns. 

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The founders had discussed the idea of judicial review when debating the Constitution, but it wasn't firmly incorporated into the American legal tradition until Chief Justice John Marshall's landmark 1803 opinion in Marbury versus Madison. 

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Text: John Marshall. Power comes from landmark case Marbury versus Madison. The first time the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated an act of Congress. The drawing of Marshall. Text: President John Adams, Judiciary Act of 1801. The painting of Adams. 

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After losing the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson, outgoing President John Adams worked with Congress to quickly pass the Judiciary Act of 1801, which created new courts and judgeships filled with President Adams' preferred candidates. 

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Text: William Marbury. On the right is a painting of Marbury, wearing a black coat and thick white collar. 

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One of them was William Marbury, who was appointed to serve as a justice of the peace. 

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Text: James Madison. On the left is a painting of Madison, wearing a black coat and white ruffle collar. 

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But the incoming administration's new Secretary of State, James Madison, refused to deliver Marbury's commission, the document he needed to officially take his job as a justice. 

After all, Madison thought, the Judiciary Act was an obvious power play by a defeated candidate.

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A handwritten letter on faded paper. 

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Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to force Madison to deliver his commission. The Supreme Court agreed that Madison's refusal to deliver the commission was illegal. But it also found the law that allowed Marbury to sue in the first place was itself unconstitutional because it extended the Supreme Court's authority beyond the powers specified by Article III of the Constitution. 

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A copy of the Constitution, Article III. Quote: "A Law repugnant to the Constitution is void. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." On the right is a painting of a man in judge robes standing by a table with his hand on a book. 

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"A law repugnant to the Constitution is void," Marshall wrote. “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” With these words, the Supreme Court for the first time declared unconstitutional a law passed by Congress and signed by the president. Nothing in the Constitution gave the court this specific power, but the decision cemented the Supreme Court's role as a co-equal branch of government and created a bedrock judicial principle that stands to this day. 

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A statue of Lady Justice with a blindfold and holding up scales. We return to the Judicial Review slide. 

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MELINDA VAUGHN: So, like judicial review, many features of our judicial system were not written into the Constitution. 

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Quote: "A Law repugnant to the Constitution is void. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury versus Madison (1803). A portrait of Marshall in a black coat and white collar is on the left. Slide: Designed over time. Text: The Constitution says little about the powers and structure of federal courts: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." U.S. Constitution article 3, section 1, clause 1. On the left are carved columns. 

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And instead, they've been established over time. Article III, which creates the judicial branch, is just 377 words in the Constitution. It's far shorter and much less specific than Article I about the legislative branch and Article II about the executive branch. 

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Text: Article 3, Section 1: Creates the Supreme Court. Gives Congress power to create inferior courts. Establishes life tenure during good behavior and prohibits salary reduction. Defines federal courts' jurisdiction. Specifies jury trials for criminal cases. Defines treason.

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Article III, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution begins this way. It says, "The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." It further says that judges shall hold their offices during good behavior, that judges' salaries cannot be reduced while they are in office, and that the jurisdiction of the federal courts extends to certain cases arising under the Constitution, U.S. law and treaties. 

Article III also guarantees trial by jury for all crimes except in cases of impeachment. And it provides a definition for treason. And that's it.

Article III says nothing about how courts will operate, the specific responsibilities that judges will have, or how they should do their job. This means that the structure of our courts and our expectations for the judicial role have been established through other means, such as political processes, traditions, case law and precedents that have evolved over hundreds of years.

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Text: The Constitution allows for flexibility in court structure and administration. Changes over time have included: Where court takes place, The number of judges, Size and composition of courts. On the right is a photo of the Supreme Court building and an icon of scales. 

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It also means that there's a lot of flexibility in how and even where our courts operate. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court building wasn't built until 1935. So over its first 146 years or so, it met in a building in New York City. It met at City Hall in Philadelphia and in Independence Hall. It met in rooms within the U.S. Capitol, I think in the basement, for a while. 

And after the War of 1812, it met in a private home in Washington, D.C. And today courts can conduct sessions in a courthouse, typically, but also at a law school or now sometimes by video conference. In fact, Duke Law hosted a federal court hearing a few weeks ago, which was really special for our law students.

The roles and responsibilities of judges have also changed over time. So judicial responsibilities can be handled by a single judge, or they might be shared among judicial officers. We have what's called magistrate judges, which are appointed by the court to assist the Article III judges.

And then there's a special master who can help with particularly complex cases. Trials are typically heard by one judge or a jury. But if a case is being heard en banc, which means the case is being reviewed a second time by all the judges of a particular appellate court, that court may have a panel of 15 or more judges.

Congress determines the number of Supreme Court justices and judgeships in the federal courts. Since the first Judiciary Act was passed by Congress in 1789, Congress has changed the number of justices on the US Supreme Court six times. There have been as few as six justices. But since 1869, there have been nine justices.

The size and composition of lower courts has changed many times, but the number of federal judgeships has not increased meaningfully since 1990. There have been some bipartisan proposals to try to add new federal judgeships to help the courts catch up to growth in our country's population and to a significant backlog from the pandemic. But that legislation has not passed yet. And right now, civil cases can take upwards of two, sometimes three years to get to trial.

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Slide: Jurisdiction. Text: Federal courts have limited jurisdiction - they can only hear certain types of cases prescribed by Constitution or by Congress. State courts have general jurisdiction - they hear all other cases. State courts hear 90-95% of all cases heard in the United States. 

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So, the Constitution also spells out the types of cases that must be heard in federal court. Federal courts have limited jurisdiction, meaning they can only hear certain cases that arise under the Constitution, federal law and treaties. Those include admiralty cases, cases between citizens of different states, and cases between citizens of a state and a foreign state or its citizens. 

And the Constitution only addresses federal courts. Each state has its own court system designed by its own state constitution. And state courts are courts of general jurisdiction, meaning they hear all the cases that aren't required by the Constitution to be heard in federal court.

And for this reason, 90% to 95% of all court cases in our country, including criminal and civil cases, are handled in state courts. In certain circumstances, the U.S. Supreme Court may hear a case that has been heard by a state supreme or an appellate court. But again, mostly the work of our judiciary is done in the states.

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Slide: Common Principles: Courts decide disputes. Text: A U.S. court can only act or exercise judicial authority when a case is brought before it by someone with standing. "Case" defined as: "A civil or criminal proceeding, action, suit, or controversy at law or in equity." In the bottom right is a graphic of one person standing between two people shouting at each other, keeping them apart. Purple tape reads Crime Scene - Do Not Cross. 

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And there are many differences between state and federal courts and the way they operate and among the court systems throughout the states. Every state is unique. But there are also many similarities, especially when it comes to the big picture tasks of interpreting and upholding the law, protecting rights and liberties, and resolving disputes quickly and efficiently. 

So, we're going to walk through a few key features that are common to both state and federal courts. So first, courts decide disputes arising under the law. Courts are tasked with resolving cases. In fact, a U.S. court can only act or exercise judicial authority when a case is brought before it, either by the government acting to enforce the law or by a person or entity who believes they have been wronged by someone who has violated the law.

The idea that only someone who has been wronged can bring a case is called standing. If the court determines that the party bringing the case does not have standing or a strong enough connection to the harm that they allege, there is no case.

Black's Law Dictionary, which is the leading legal dictionary in the United States, defines a case as a civil or criminal proceeding, action, suit, or controversy at law or in equity. Cases must resolve real disputes between parties, not hypotheticals.

This is known as the case and controversy requirement. It's spelled out in Article III. It is also designed to keep courts out of the policy and political matters that are the domain of the elected branches. Courts almost never offer opinions or speak out on political issues and controversies outside of written opinions in actual cases.

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Text: Criminal cases - courts determine whether a person committed a crime. Civil cases - courts settle private disputes between two or more parties. 

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There are two general types of cases. The criminal cases involve a violation of the law and might range from misdemeanor shoplifting or to serious felony cases such as homicide or violent assault. In criminal cases, the courts determine whether a person committed a crime and what the punishment should be. 

Civil cases are private disputes between two or more parties, and might involve things like the interpretation of contracts, liability for personal injury, and disputes over property boundaries. You all are probably familiar with these issues. Civil cases generally begin with someone filing a lawsuit against someone else in order to obtain a court order or a financial judgment. In some cases, even traffic infractions can involve civil and criminal penalties.

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Slide: Common Principles: Adversarial System. Text: Each case has a plaintiff, a defendant, and a neutral fact-finder. Based on the English common law system. On the right is an icon of two people standing at podiums. One speaks. 

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So, the second common principle between-- among federal and state courts is both operate on what we call an adversarial system for handling cases. In the adversarial system, each case has a claimant or a plaintiff-- and that's the person or entity who brings the case-- and a defendant, the person or entity who is accused of wrongdoing. In criminal cases, the case is brought by the government. Both parties are able to argue their case before a neutral fact finder, which is either a judge or a jury of peers, who then decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent. 

The adversarial system comes from the English common law tradition, which developed over hundreds of years as cases were decided by courts and precedents were created. In the common law tradition, the clash of adversaries before the court is seen as the fairest way to resolve a case, because the parties involved have the most at stake and are in the best position to argue for themselves.

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Slide: Common Principles: Structure. Text: Trial courts determine the facts of a case. Courts of intermediate appeal review process and correct errors. Court of last resort (supreme court) review process and correct errors. On the right is a blue staircase. 

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The third feature that is common among our federal and state courts is the structure. So the federal and state judiciaries generally follow a three-tier structure with trial courts, which determine the facts of a case, the courts of intermediate appeal, and the court of last resort, which is usually called a supreme court. And the supreme court usually has the final word. 

Some states may only allow one opportunity for an appeal. But the multi-tiered structure of courts affords litigants the opportunity to have the work of the lower court reviewed. And appeals don't necessarily guarantee a correct result or a perfect process, but they do allow for clarification when lower courts disagree, and for the correction of errors that substantially affect the fairness of the process. And this is one of the ways that courts ensure our constitutional right to due process, which is a set of procedures designed to protect people from the arbitrary exercise of government power.

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Slide: Common Principles: Rule of Law. Text: Courts hold all persons, institutions, and entities accountable to laws that are Publicly promulgated, Equally enforced, Independently adjudicated, And consistent with international human rights principles. 

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And finally, all courts play a fundamental role in upholding the rule of law. So as we talked about at the beginning, the founders created a government in which we the people would be governed by laws rather than the whims of political leaders. So, there are a lot of definitions for the rule of law. 

But generally-- I think this is a generally accepted principle-- it's an idea under which all people, institutions and entities are accountable to the laws that are publicly developed and enacted, equally enforced, applied and interpreted by an independent judiciary, and consistent with international human rights principles.

Every branch of our government plays a role in upholding the law, and the judiciary has a particular responsibility to act as the intermediary of the people when interpreting and applying the law. And in doing so, judges work to ensure that the political branches of government do not exceed the authority granted to them in the Constitution by we the people. And they ensure that the laws of our nation do not infringe upon our constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties.

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Quote: "There can be no free society without law administered through an independent judiciary. If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny." Justice Felix Frankfurter, United States versus United Mine Workers (1947). On the left is a black and white photo of Justice Frankfurter wearing a suit and holding a thick book. 

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So I want to just end with one more Supreme Court justice quote. This is Justice Felix Frankfurter, who wrote in a 1947 opinion, there can be no free society without law administered through an independent judiciary. If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos and then tyranny. 

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Slide: Discussion: The Rule of Law at Work. Text: What laws allowed you to be here, taking this course, today? Logo: Civics Break. Civics Education for the Workplace. 

(SPEECH)
So that's the end of my presentation. I think we've got some questions. And I want you all to be able to pose some questions in the chat. There's a question that we had posed generally in previous courses just to get you thinking about what the rule of law means to you and how it applies in your personal life. And so the question is, what laws allowed you to be here taking this course today? 

And I think when you think about how laws affect your day to day, even the judges earlier talking about being able to cross a street without getting hit by a car, relying on people adhering to speed limits, when you start down that path, I think you start to think of a lot of laws that make it possible for you to go about your daily life. So, Janice, I'll let you take it from here in terms of posing questions or talking through some of these issues.

JANICE BRUNNER: Great. So thank you so much, Melinda. That was super helpful. And that's actually a tough question that you've posed here. So I'll look forward to seeing the responses.

We had a few questions submitted in advance that I'd love to start with. And then I think there's also questions in the chat that we'd love to get to as well. The first one I have is who enforces court orders at the state and federal level, and what happens if court orders are ignored?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Good question. And I'll say a lot of these are questions we should pose to the judges when we have them. And I think their answers will be really helpful. In general, the courts have a few tools to enforce orders, including contempt proceedings and sanctions on attorneys. But while judges have that authority and they can issue fines, they ultimately rely on law enforcement to enforce orders. The U.S. Marshals Service, which is part of the Department of Justice within the executive branch, is the primary enforcement arm for the judicial branch. So they serve summonses, and subpoenas, and warrants, and can make arrests.

There have been just a few times when presidents openly defied court orders. President Andrew Johnson refused to enforce the Supreme Court decision that affirmed the independence of the Cherokee Nation. And there's a sort of an apocryphal quote attributed to him when he said, "Chief Judge John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it," which was sort of taunting, like the courts don't have an army or a police force at their disposal. And the order was not enforced.

President Lincoln also ignored a court order at the outset of the Civil War, which was issued by the chief justice who said that the president's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, which is the requirement that the government has to justify a prisoner's detention.

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The slideshow presentation is replaced by a split screen video call of the two speakers. 

(SPEECH)
When President Lincoln suspended that at the beginning of Civil War, the court said that exceeded the executive's authority. But he did it anyway. 

And I think there was some latitude with, when you're in wartime, there are different rules that apply. But since the Civil War, presidents and other elected officials have generally respected the obligation to follow court orders. And there are two examples that I like to give. Dwight Eisenhower-- President Eisenhower did not agree with the court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, which enforced desegregation of schools. But he dispatched troops to Arkansas to enforce the order. He knew that was his job.

And when the Supreme Court decided that detainees at Guantanamo Bay could challenge their confinement in court in the early 2000s, President George Bush said, "We'll abide by the Supreme Court's decision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it." So there's a lot of tradition, and pressure, and expectation that the executive branch follows through on enforcing court orders. And since the Civil War, that's been reliably the case.

JANICE BRUNNER: Good to know. The second question we have is, what if another branch of government wants to interpret the Constitution differently than the courts do?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. And I think there's some leeway there, too. So the Supreme Court has generally operated as the highest tribunal for all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution or the laws in the United States and is the final arbiter of the law. The function of judicial review, which we talked about in the video with Marbury v. Madison, was not explicitly provided for in the Constitution, although the Founding Fathers did talk about it when they were writing the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton had written that the practice of judicial review would allow the court to ensure that the will of the whole people, as expressed in the Constitution, would be supreme over the will of a legislature, where statutes might express only the temporary will of part of the people. And James Madison had said similar things.

So I think judicial review again is not in the Constitution. I think there's some flexibility. And I think there has been, over time, push and pull over which branch has more or less authority at a given time. I think that's a really good question we can ask the judges. One of the judges, a director of the Bolch Institute, is a former federal judge and will certainly have thoughts on that.

JANICE BRUNNER: That sounds good. We'll look forward to that. Just as a reminder, the judges will be with us on the fourth session so we will be ready for them-- we’ll have learned a lot by then.

So it seemed-- the third question I have is it seems like the courts have slowed down since the pandemic. Is staffing still an issue? So kind of a little bit more of a practical day-to-day question.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. Yes. The pandemic had a huge impact on the courts. And many had to close for a period of time. And when they reopened, they had to take measures to ensure social distancing, which made everything harder and take longer. I heard about one judge in LA who was using the Disney Opera House there to hold jury selection so that they could have jurors sit with 6 feet behind them and next to them. I mean, everything just took a lot longer for a good year to 18 months and maybe even more.

But backlogs were an issue before that. I mentioned the last substantial increase in the number of judgeships in this country was in 1990. And since then, the population of the country has grown by 34%. And the federal caseload has grown by about 30%.

So I have some numbers on this. In March 2024, so a year ago, there were 750,000 pending cases in the federal courts. And there are about 677 authorized judgeships. So that's more than 1,000 cases per judge. Now, there are some judges who serve in senior roles, which is sort of in addition to that 677. But I mean, a judge even with 500 cases on their docket is buried in work. So it's slow. Criminal cases have to be prioritized in the courts so those get heard first.

But that means that civil cases, again, can take two to three years to get to trial. And there have been bipartisan efforts underway to try to add judgeships. There was a bill in the last Congress that President Biden vetoed. But I think we hope the current Congress might look at it again. I think judges are very, very, very busy. And it impacts people when they're trying to have their cases heard.

JANICE BRUNNER: And how much of that can be-- I know during COVID, a lot of things went online. Is that applicable to the judicial system as well?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yes. State courts have a lot more flexibility. So there's a lot of debate in the federal courts as to whether they can go online. If you're a defendant in a criminal case, you have the constitutional right to see the person accusing you. And so there's different interpretations on what can be done online. I think a lot of judges do a lot of meetings online now.

So I think there's a lot less flying attorneys around for 15-minute conferences. But whether a trial can be online, that's done differently. State courts have done it. And many state courts have adopted a lot more virtual and video conferencing practices and have seen some success in appearance rates. People who have a court date are more likely to show up often when they can do it virtually.

So it's true, I think, on the legislative level, too. States are sort of a laboratory. States can do things easier. It's easier to amend a state constitution. It's easier to pass a law in a state. So the states tend to be more innovative in many respects than the federal courts.

JANICE BRUNNER: Very interesting. The next question is what, if any, laws are considered immutable? How easy or difficult is it to reverse or throw out laws?

MELINDA VAUGHN: So again, different state and federal. But in general, all laws passed at the federal, state and local level have to comply with rights guaranteed by the Constitution. And there are processes for changing all the laws. If a law is challenged in court and the courts say it's unconstitutional, it can be thrown out. But that's not usually the end.

Even with something that's deemed unconstitutional, legislators can go back and try it again with different wording, a different structure to the law to address the court's concerns. So there's a back and forth there. And the Constitution, of course, can be changed through the amendment process. That's much harder. The last amendment was passed in 1992. That was the 27th Amendment. And it had to do with compensation for members of Congress.

And an Amendment has to be passed by two-thirds of Congress first and then three-fourths of the states. So that's a really hard bar, but it can be done. And a lot of the change that's happened in our country over time took a long time. That's sort of I think by design so that we're not in that political sway of the moment and looking at a long-term impact of laws.

JANICE BRUNNER: I think that sometimes that's such a great point. It's sometimes easy to forget how much has happened in our country's history and the ups and downs, the movement.

This question-- you talked a little bit about this in the script, but the question is, can you talk a little bit more about what standing means and does it apply in criminal as well as civil cases?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, standing is the idea that the person bringing the case has to show that they were personally harmed by the actions of the party they are suing or accusing. You can't just file a lawsuit because you don't like something that's happening. You have to demonstrate personal injury. And I think you also have to show that the court can address it, that, in a favorable decision, something can be done to remedy the harm.

Criminal cases are always brought by the government. And so the government isn't necessarily personally harmed. But their standing I think relates to the responsibility of enforcing the law. So it's a little bit of a different issue, but it's the same principle. I mean, the government's job is to defend and enforce the law. And so they are the ones who bring cases when there's a criminal accusation of a law that's being broken. I hope that answers it.

JANICE BRUNNER: I think so. And the next question changes gears a little bit. It says, how do military courts and immigration courts work in the context of the broader system?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. This will be a really good question to ask Judge Grimm when he's with us in a few weeks. But military courts and immigration courts are both part of the executive branch. So the executive branch, all the agencies have sort of courtlike systems that preside over hearings relating to agency rules and policies. And so those are administered by the executive branch. And immigration courts are part of the Department of Justice, which is part of the executive branch. Some of those decisions can be appealed in federal courts.

Military courts are sort of a separate animal, and they operate under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which has a similar structure. And they enforce the code in a similar way. But there are different laws that apply to members of the service.

Judge Graham, when he comes, he was in the military. He was a JAG for a number of years. So he'll have some insight on that. But I know immigration courts are very much in the news. And that's outside of the federal court system. It's managed within the Department of Justice.

JANICE BRUNNER: Super interesting. I still remember that show JAG, too. That was dating myself, for sure, but that shed a little bit of light. Always dangerous to learn your judicial information from a TV show, but nonetheless.

The next question is, how does the Supreme Court decide which cases to hear each year? How do state and federal courts determine which judge hears a case?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Great. Yeah. So this question came up in a previous course that we delivered. And the state court judge responded to it in this whole-- she said our court assigns cases in all these different ways based on location and who's available that day. And federal courts tend to do them on a random basis.

So I think the answer is it's different from court to court and state and federal. But the commonality was the judges have no say. The judges don't get to say what cases come their way. They can't say, no, I don't want that case. And they can't say, I want that case.

So lawyers can sometimes decide by venue. They know in a state court a judge is going to be practicing in that court on a certain day, so they'll set their trial date for that date. But the judges really don't have a say. And it just depends on the court. The court sets a policy for its own use.

So the Supreme Court is the only court that gets to decide what cases they will take. And generally, people who want to appeal a Circuit Court decision can file a writ of certiorari, which is a request to the Supreme Court to hear a case. The court doesn't have to hear it.

They will usually pick cases that have national implications or a case where the law is unclear. They may have different circuits from different parts of the country that have interpreted a law differently and that needs to be clarified. I mean, so in general, I think the court takes 90 to 100 cases a year, the Supreme Court, out of like six or 7,000 requests.

I think that's part of why we see political cases being decided by the Supreme Court, because those are the ones where there's been different interpretations. There's some movement in the way the law is being understood. And they weigh in to clarify. So yeah. They get to pick. And they don't always pick what everyone would want them to pick.

JANICE BRUNNER: And the other thing I think people sometimes-- they're sometimes disappointed by when a Supreme Court opinion comes out is one of the things we've noticed with this webinar is there's a lot of procedural underpinning of everything, right?

And so sometimes the Supreme Court will pick a case that involves a very-- kind of an issue that's in the news. But then when the opinion comes out, they'll never even reach the substance. It’s really-- they often decide it on a procedural issue because there is so much of a network-- network's not the right word. But there are so many kind of threshold decisions before you even get to a decision on the merits, so to speak, that need to be made. So it's very complicated.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Absolutely. Yeah. And it's interesting. I asked one group in a class if they, looking at the previous Supreme Court term, how many cases they thought were decided along the traditional party lines, the political lines.

And several people said, oh, 100%. They were all politically charged. And it was 15% of the caseload in that term was. So 85% of the cases are decided with different groups of judges that you wouldn't think would align for whatever reasons. And it is because it's process. It's procedure. It's precedent. And they all bring different views and experiences and see things in different ways.

And I mean, the system just allows for quite a bit of flexibility in interpretation which, over time, can be frustrating I think today maybe, but over time you can see the wisdom in that because we change, and our values as a country change and the times change. And there's a slow but methodical sort of way of addressing that through those processes.

JANICE BRUNNER: That kind of leads to another question, which is in the chat, and I think is interesting and complicated also, about the appellate process and how you even get to the Supreme Court.

It says, how do local courts rule on national laws and issues? Shouldn't these be federal judges? Can't the rulings of these lower courts that have impacts nationwide be deemed unconstitutional? Is it overreaching to have a judicial branch that deems to make laws nationally but are locally elected district judges?

MELINDA VAUGHN: So I think probably the issue that we're speaking to is the injunctions and some of these-- and just to be clear, district judges-- federal district judges are not elected. They are appointed in the same way that circuit judges are and the Supreme Court justices. So all of those federal judges are appointed. Not to say that that's not a political process in itself, but it's an appointment. Elected judges are, generally, state judges. And not every state elects judges, but most of them have some form of election.

And I think the issue there gets to a little bit-- someone I think mentioned forum shopping. And there's a lot at play there. And I think Judge Grimm will be the best to respond to it. I think that's a topic of a lot of conversation. There are a lot of scholars looking at this. Are injunctions appropriate? Are they not appropriate, combined with the ability to file a case in a particular place where you think the judge might be more favorable to you.

There's a lot of play that's built into the system. And it's tested in different ways at different times. So that's all I want to say about it. I think Judge Grimm will have a better explanation of some of those issues. He's written a little bit about injunctions. He will have a much better explanation than I do. But just to clarify, federal judges are all appointed and have a federal jurisdiction.

JANICE BRUNNER: So, Melinda, I don't want to put you on the spot, but are there any questions in the chat that kind of spoke to you that you really want to make sure-- I apologize in advance. There's no way we will get to all the questions in the chat today. But the good thing is that we will have Melinda back for three more sessions. So we will have another chance. But is there anything on this particular session that you feel like might be well served by answering?

MELINDA VAUGHN: There are. I mean there are so many questions here. I think one thing I want to say, in the next session, we talk about the job of being a judge. And I think that will get to some of these questions. We talk about ethics codes and codes of conduct. And we talk about judicial decision-making and the process and constraints on what judges can and can't do when they are making decisions. So I think that's a really helpful one to just get a better understanding of the idea of judicial independence, which does not mean judges can just do whatever they want.

Judicial independence is about trying to preserve independence from politics. But there's just a lot of play in that system as well. So that's the second session. The third session is on the courts and you and talks a lot about how we as citizens can get involved and in what areas. And sometimes it's electing judges and sometimes it's electing representatives who will participate in the federal process. So some of the content in those other courses, I think, might get to some of these questions.

JANICE BRUNNER: For sure. I mean and some of this is-- the other thing that strikes me is it's been a long time since I went to law school, but we had a lot of-- some of these questions, to be honest, there's a whole course on when you work through some, interestingly. So this is really-- we're really so pleased to have you here today just to lift the curtain on some of these things.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. Thank you. I'm really happy to do it. I'm really happy that people are here and interested. I mean I know these are topics that are in the news. And I and probably the judges aren't going to want to comment too directly on specifics in the news. And judges-- sitting judges are limited. They're really ethically bound to not say anything about a case that is or could ever come before them. But we have a retired federal judge joining us who feels he can speak a little more freely.

But I think that, for me, the important thing is to understand the system, and the way it was designed, and to get a sense of the processes that are at play and how it's supposed to work. And then the other thing I'll say is, when you look at our history, there's been a lot of back and forth and a lot of really difficult times that the system has helped with, has given a path forward, has provided a structure for addressing problems that we identify.

And I was using an analogy of I see the Constitution as like an earthquake-proofed building. I used to work in Los Angeles. We had a building that was retrofitted. And in an earthquake, it would sway, which was very scary, but it didn't crumble.

And I feel like that's a little bit what the Constitution is supposed to be. Give that room for sway but hold firm in the structure. So it's good for all of us to understand what that structure is and how we can get involved in supporting it.

JANICE BRUNNER: Well, that's a very good analogy for insurance.

(DESCRIPTION)
The slideshow presentation returns. Slide: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute. A Series on Civic Engagement. Text: Take our Survey: Link in Chat. Watch Replays: travelersinstitute.org. Visit Bolch to Learn More: A QR code is on the right. 

(SPEECH)
We like resilient buildings for sure. So with that, I will say a huge thank you to Melinda for the fantastic discussion today. And just a reminder that we will have three more sessions and would love for you to join all of them, audience members. 

If you do join all four sessions, there will be a certificate as well as possibly a free t-shirt. So we look forward to continuing this conversation with you. And we are so pleased to have Melinda continuing to join us.

The replay for this session, in case you missed part or wanted to hear back, will be available within a few days so you can catch up in time for next Monday. And with that, I think we will see you all next week.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Thank you. Thanks so much, Janice.

JANICE BRUNNER: Thank you.

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

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Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute. A Series on Civic Engagement. 

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(DESCRIPTION)
This content is brought to you by Travelers. Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute, a Series on Civic Engagement. On the next slide, Janice Brunner appears in a video call tile in the upper right corner. The slide reads, Civics Break: A Course on the Judiciary with Duke Law, Understanding the Judge's Job, above logos for Citizen Travelers, Bolch Judicial Institute Duke Law, and Civics Break. 

(SPEECH)
JANICE BRUNNER: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. I'm Janice Brunner, Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement for Travelers. And I'm happy to welcome you this afternoon to our special Citizen Travelers at the Travelers Institute program with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law. Citizen Travelers is our aggressively nonpartisan initiative to empower Travelers employees to take part in the civic life of their communities while building leadership and professional skills. 

Our democracy depends on informed and engaged citizens. When people better understand how our democracy works, they're better equipped to engage in civil dialogue, take constructive action and invest in our communities, all of which is good for business. It's with this in mind that we are pleased to host a series of programs on the judiciary with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke University Law School. This second course in our series of four explores the rule of law and the constitutional foundation for the U.S. judicial system.

Before we begin, I'd like to share a disclaimer about today's program.

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Text: About Today’s Webinar. This webinar is supported by Citizen Travelers, the civic engagement initiative of The Travelers Indemnity Co., for informational and educational purposes only. The non-partisan views expressed by the speakers and/or the Bolch Judicial Institute and its employees are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Travelers or any of its employees. Travelers disclaims responsibility for any publication or statement by any of the speakers and/or Bolch Judicial Institute. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. 

(SPEECH)
I'd also like to invite you to take the pre-course survey that is available through the link in the chat, if you haven't already accessed it through the QR code at the beginning of the program, and to submit questions now and throughout the program. Drop your questions in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. With that, I am thrilled to be joined today by our amazing guest. 

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Text: Speakers. On the slide, Janice Brunner and Melinda Vaughn smile in headshot photos above their names and titles. Janice has shoulder-length, blonde hair and wears a dark suit in her photo. Melinda has short, reddish blonde hair and wears an orange blazer in hers. Text: Janice Brunner, Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement, Travelers. Melinda Vaughn, Deputy Director, Bolch Judicial Institute. 

(SPEECH)
Melinda Vaughn is Deputy Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Melinda oversees the development and implementation of educational programs, conferences, events, communications and multimedia projects designed to support and strengthen the judiciary and to improve public understanding of the rule of law and the role of the judicial branch. She is also Managing Editor of Judicature, a scholarly journal about judging, produced by the Institute for Federal and State Judges. 

Thank you for being here with us today, Melinda. Now, I'll turn it over to you to tell us more about understanding the judge's job.

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Melinda appears in the video call tile. Logo: Civics Break. Text: Understanding the Judge’s Job presented by the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law School. Logos: Duke Law. Bolch Judicial Institute. 

(SPEECH)
MELINDA VAUGHN: Thank you, Janice. It's great to be here today and so nice to see so many of you again here to join our Civics Break program. Again, I'm Melinda Vaughn. 

I'm Deputy Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School in Durham, North Carolina. We're a nonpartisan center at the law school that works to strengthen the rule of law through education and research. And today's program is part of our Civics Break initiative, which provides short civic education courses for adults that can be done during a lunch break. So I hope you're all enjoying some lunch somewhere.

Today's session focuses on the job of judging. We'll have a few questions and polls during the presentation, so please watch for those and feel free to write down any questions that you have. We'll have a little time at the end for questions, and then we have two judges joining us on March 24 to take your questions. We can go ahead and get started.

All right.

(DESCRIPTION)
The next slide displays a map of the U.S., covered in a fine grid of red dots. Text: Each dot represents approximately four U.S. judges. 

(SPEECH)
Courts in the United States are as complex and varied as the communities in which they operate. There are more than 30,000 judges across our state and federal courts, including about 2,500 district, circuit and other types of judges in the federal courts. So in this slide that you're seeing now, each little tiny red dot represents about four U.S. judges, and the blue dot shows you the number of judges of that full number that are federal judges. So it's a tiny percentage. 

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A blue circle appears over the central U.S., around Kansas, encompassing a small fraction of the dots. Text: Blue dot represent federal judges. 

(SPEECH)
In this program, we're going to talk about how judges get their jobs, the expectations and responsibilities of the judicial role, and the unique and complex judicial decision-making process. 

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In an image on the next slide, a statue sits outside the Supreme Court building, which has Corinthian columns across the entrance. The stone above the columns reads, Equal Treatment Under the Law. Text: Becoming a Judge. Federal Judges: Nominated by President, confirmed by Senate. Life tenure. Impeachment for abuse of power. State Judges: Selection methods vary — election, appointment, retention. Some limit terms, mandate retirement, allow recalls. 

(SPEECH)
Federal judges are nominated by the president of the United States and approved by a majority vote of the U.S. Senate. As specified by the Constitution, we talked a little bit about this last week, federal judges shall hold their office during good behavior, which has been interpreted to give federal judges life tenure. 

This means they remain in their jobs until they resign, retire, die or are removed from office by impeachment. And Congress can impeach and remove a federal judge from office for misconduct or abuse of power, but it's only done that 15 times in our country's history. The last time was in 2010. There are also some federal judges with specialized roles such as bankruptcy and magistrate judges, and they're appointed by the courts. And they serve specified terms and do particular jobs to assist the judges who are nominated by the president.

State court judges get their jobs in a variety of ways. So that's all those red dots on the map. Depending on the state, judges might be appointed by a governor, approved by the legislature or a judicial commission. They might be elected by popular vote, appointed or elected to a time-limited term. They may be subject to a retention election, or some mix of all of those methods.

Some states have nonpartisan judicial elections, and some have partisan judicial elections, which means a judicial candidate's political party would be listed on the ballot when you vote for them. Some states impose term limits and age limits on judges, and in some states, judges can be removed not just by impeachment, but also by popular vote in a recall election. And all of those methods vary, and they can change frequently across the state. So in one state, you might have a legislature imposing an age limit, and at the very same time, another state might be getting rid of an age limit. It changes all across the country.

And legal scholars tend to see benefits and costs in both judicial appointments and judicial elections. Some argue that appointments to long terms can help shield a judge from political pressures, and I think that's what the founders had in mind when they gave life tenure to federal judges. But others argue that popular elections make judges more accountable to the communities they serve. All of it is an attempt to balance a judge's ability to do his or her job without worrying about what's popular or politically beneficial, alongside mechanisms for accountability. And that's an ongoing experiment with no right or wrong answer that we've hit on yet.

(DESCRIPTION)
In a photo on the next slide, Supreme Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson takes the federal judicial oath, raising her right hand and resting her left hand on two books, held in front of her by a man in a suit. Chief Justice Roberts stands across from her, looking down at a sheet of paper. Text: The Federal Judicial Oath. “I, do solemnly affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [a United States Circuit Judge, District Judge or United States Magistrate Judge] under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” 

(SPEECH)
Once they have the job, all judges take an oath. This oath is the one taken by federal judges. I do solemnly affirm that I will administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution and the laws of the United States. 

And once they take the oath, judges are then given the authority and independence to make judgments in individual cases within the constraints of law, rules and ethics, and to make the decisions that are necessary to resolve cases. Administering justice fairly and doing equal right to everyone who comes before the court is a pretty lofty ideal, so there are some structures in place to help judges do that.

(DESCRIPTION)
A circular seal on the next slide reads: State of North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission. January 1, 1973. The seal depicts a seated woman touching the end of a cornucopia with one hand and holding three stalks of wheat in the other. A standing woman holds a staff and a scroll that reads, Constitution. Text: Codes of Conduct. Provide standards for ethical behavior and usually specify that a judge must: Act in a manner that promotes public confidence in the courts. Remove themselves from a case in which they have a financial interest or conflict (recusal). Avoid engaging in political activity or pursuing financial or business relationships that create bias. Judicial conduct commissions provide guidance and investigate ethics complaints. 

(SPEECH)
Federal and state court judges are subject to codes of judicial conduct, which outline the ethical standards of the profession and aim to help judges maintain impartiality. 

For example, these codes often say that judges must act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, and that judges must recuse or remove themselves from cases in which they have or appear to have a financial interest, or a conflict of interest, or can't be unbiased. These codes require judges to refrain from engaging in political activity or developing political or business relationships that could lead to biased judgments. And if you've ever looked at the judicial code of conduct, they go on and on. And there's a lot of nuance in these codes, and the wording of these standards can mean different things to different people and leave room for interpretation.

So to help interpret and apply these standards, most courts have a judicial conduct commission that is there to provide guidance to judges on ethical behavior and can investigate ethics complaints that are filed against judges. And judges who violate those codes can be subject to sanctions. Federal judges can be investigated and disciplined by their circuit's judicial council, which would be a group of judges in that circuit, or by the judicial conference of the United States, which is an administrative body also made up of judges, mostly the chief judges of each Federal Circuit, and chaired by the chief justice of the United States. And federal judges can be removed from office by Congress through impeachment proceedings in the House and conviction in the Senate.

State court judges might be privately or publicly reprimanded by an ethics commission. They might be required to perform community service, and they can be forced to resign. Most states also have mechanisms for impeaching judges through the legislation or the legislature. But again, this process is typically reserved for serious ethical and criminal violations.

The oath of office, codes of conduct and judicial conduct commissions work together to help judges develop shared values, and to provide the public, us, with a set of expectations for judicial behavior.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: The Supreme Court. The Supreme Court adopted its own code of conduct in November 2023. It largely mirrors the federal judicial code of conduct, with key distinctions for recusal and discipline. In an image above the text, the nine Supreme Court justices pose in their black judges' robes in front of a red curtain.

(SPEECH)
The Supreme Court recently adopted its own code of conduct which applies just to the justices of the Supreme Court. It's nearly identical to the federal judicial code, but it's adapted to some of the unique needs of our highest court.

One difference is that the justices have what's called a duty to sit. When a lower court judge recuses in a case where there may be a conflict, another federal judge can take that recusing judge's place. But current law does not allow for a Supreme Court justice to be replaced on a case. So if a justice recuses, the remaining justices may vote in a 4 to 4 split, which means no binding decision can be reached.

Justice Antonin Scalia once said that recusal is the same thing as casting a vote against the petitioner or the party that appealed the case to the Supreme Court. Because if the court is divided, the decision of the lower court stands. So the decision that that person or entity is appealing would be the decision that stands. But some believe that justices should recuse when there is potential for bias, or even the appearance of bias, as a way to instill and retain public trust. And the justices can and do recuse, but whether to do so is up to them.

Another difference for the Supreme Court is enforcement. Neither the federal code of conduct nor the Supreme Court code is binding for Supreme Court justices, but the federal judicial code does provide for disciplining a federal court judge, a lower court judge, who violates the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act, which was passed by Congress in 1980. And that act created a process for complaints and discipline against judges who do something that threatens the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts, or if they're not able to do their job for reasons of mental or physical disability.

That process cannot be the basis for complaints against the Supreme Court justices because the act doesn't apply to the Supreme Court. And there are debates over whether the justices can be subject to discipline by lower court judges. But like all other federal judges, Supreme Court justices can be impeached and convicted by Congress for serious ethical or criminal misconduct.

(DESCRIPTION)
In a graphic on the following slide, scales sit atop two stacked books. The spine of the top book reads, Justice. A gavel lies in front of the books. Text: Judicial Discretion. Judicial discretion refers to a judge's power to make a decision based on their individualized evaluation, guided by the principles of law. Judicial decision-making process has unique features. On the next slide, text: Judicial Decision-Making. Constrained by law, ethics, rules, guidelines. Explained in detailed written opinions and subject to appeal. Consider impact. 

(SPEECH)
So let's talk a little bit about judicial discretion. Judges are bound by the oath of office and codes of conduct, but they exercise broad discretion in their judicial decision-making. Judicial discretion refers to a judge's power to make a decision based on their own evaluation of the issues before them guided by the principles of law. And given their unique roles and authority, judges are able to approach decision-making in some unique ways. 

First, a judge's decision-making is constrained in formal and informal ways. Judges have to ensure that their decisions abide by sources of law, including the U.S. Constitution, the state constitution, statutes, local ordinances, and case law and precedent. Judges also adhere to federal or state rules of practice and procedure, and those rules are designed to govern the process by which cases are moved through the courts. They also have to take into consideration sentencing guidelines, which provide guidance for appropriate sentences for people convicted of certain crimes, and judges are further constrained by ethics and codes of conduct and traditions and norms.

Second, with few expectations, judges must explain their rulings. Most federal judges write opinions that must articulate the facts and the law supporting their decisions, and those written opinions must be made public. Sometimes, judges even issue orders from the bench in a courtroom and personally explain to the room their reasoning. Once a judge issues an order, their work may then be subject to review through the appellate process if a party believes the judge abused their discretion or made an error of law. If a judge does make a mistake, either in law or procedure, the decision might be overturned by a higher court.

And finally, judges' decisions have an impact far beyond a single case. Their decisions, especially those that are issued formally in written opinions, become part of our common law system. In a common law system, judges consider prior decisions made in similar cases to help create consistent and predictable outcomes, which are really important for businesses and everyone who abides by the law. This means a case from a long time ago or a different place can influence cases here and now, and a judge writing a decision today must consider how it might affect cases in the future.

(DESCRIPTION)
In an image on the next slide, the tops of ornate courthouse columns have an ornate pattern of curling leaves. Text: Appellate Judges. Further constrained to considering only the facts of the case as heard in the trial courts. Job is to review the procedures and decisions of the trial court for errors and fairness. 

(SPEECH)
Appellate judges and Supreme Court justices face an additional constraint. They may only review the facts of the case as presented at trial or in a summary judgment, which is a court ordered judgment that ends a case without a trial. Appeals courts do not have juries. No new witnesses may be called, and no new evidence can be presented. Lawyers for both sides can submit briefs to summarize their positions and present oral arguments, but the job of the appeals court is to review the work of the trial court to make sure the process was fair, and that there were no legal mistakes that affected the outcome. 

(DESCRIPTION)
On the next slide, a blindfolded justice statue holds a set of scales in one hand. The scales and blindfold are rendered in a metallic gold. Text: Fair and impartial. When it operates as intended, we trust the judiciary to treat us fairly and to treat all cases impartially. Trust in the impartiality of the system fosters willingness to accept judgments — even when we disagree with the outcome. 

(SPEECH)
It is rare that all parties are happy with the outcome of a case. I mean, we've created an adversarial system. We talked about that last time where someone wins and someone always loses. 

But we hope that all parties are heard, respected and treated fairly. And when the system is operating as intended, we can expect the judiciary to treat us fairly and to protect our constitutional right to due process of the law which guarantees all of us the right to a fair trial. And when we see that the judicial system is striving to operate fairly and impartially, I think it's easier for us to accept judgments issued by courts even when we disagree with them.

So we're going to talk a little bit more-- I've got a video here to show about independence and impartiality, but I'm curious to hear what words you would use to describe the principle of impartiality. So I think you can use the Q&A function to just share words that come to mind when you think of impartiality or what a judge's job is in being impartial. Let's see if I can see some of the answers that come in-- neutral, unbiased, an objective view. Yep, equal standing in the law. That's a great one.

The law applies to everybody that comes before you. Openness to viewpoints, equal treatment for both sides. To have no stake in the case at hand. Yep, I think you guys-- you get it.

All right, let's take a quick look at this video. I think my colleague Kristen's going to pull it up.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

The following program was produced by the United States Courts.

(DESCRIPTION)
A logo with an eagle and court building says, United States Courts. Illustrated hands raise in front of a courthouse. A justice statue holds a set of scales. Text: Court Shorts, AN IMPARTIAL JUDICIARY. A man in a brown suit appears. Text: CHRIS THOMAS, HOST. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

(SPEECH)
Hello. I'm Chris Thomas with the United States Courts. In this edition of Court Shorts, we focus on the importance of a fair and impartial judiciary. But what does that concept mean, and what impact does that have on your life as a law-abiding citizen?

(DESCRIPTION)
A judge addresses a group of students in a courtroom.

(SPEECH)
In this broadcast, students question federal judges from across the country on these principles. How do they affect judicial decisions? And more importantly, what does that mean to you? 

Why is a fair and impartial judiciary important?

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: JUDGE RODNEY SIPPEL, EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI. 

(SPEECH)
It's important to count on a fair and impartial judiciary because people are going to settle their disputes, but they need to have a place they can come where they have confidence that they will be treated fairly, and that that dispute will be settled fairly, whatever the outcome. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: JUDGE RICHARD JONES, WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON. 

(SPEECH)
They know if they come to a court, they know that a judge is not influenced by politics. The judge has the opportunity to make a fair determination based upon the law, based upon precedent and based upon the rule of law. 

What is judicial independence? 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: JUDGE ROBERT LASNIK, WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON. 

(SPEECH)
It's so important for federal judges, especially, to have the freedom to say Congress has gone too far in this area. The people have gone too far in some areas. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: CHIEF JUDGE CATHERINE PERRY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI. 

(SPEECH)
If we didn't have judicial independence, judges would be tempted to, or might need to, tailor their decisions for what the public wanted as opposed to what the law said. 

Judicial independence does not mean that judges are free to impose their own bias. We're governed by a rule of law, and you read all of the things from the Founding Fathers forward. And the rule of law and not men are what guide the judiciary and ultimately judicial independence.

Do judges have unlimited power?

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: MAGISTRATE JUDGE MARY ANN MEDLER, EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI, SAINT LOUIS. 

(SPEECH)
We are bound by the rule of law. We must look to the facts of each case. We must look to the arguments of the parties. We must look to the law itself and how it comports with the Constitution. And we must make the decision based only on those things, not how we feel about it, and not how somebody else feels about it. 

We do not have unlimited power, and that you always have the right to appeal. And so there is always a balance on our decision-making process.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: CHIEF JUDGE IRMA GONZALEZ, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA.

(SPEECH)
We're independent, but we're not all-powerful. And I think the public needs to be aware of that. 

Should judges be accountable to public opinion?

For most judges, I think what's important to us is that people understand we're doing the best to make it a fair process and to follow the law.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: JUDGE MARILYN HUFF, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA.

(SPEECH)
We are appointed for life so that we do not have to make popular decisions. Sometimes, our decisions are to protect the small person, the individual, but it's based on standards, constitutional principles, that have served our country well. 

The outcome of the case is driven by the rule of law, and not to sit and wonder about the outcome of a case based upon public opinion.

Can judges make whatever decisions they wish?

We have to follow the laws that Congress writes. We have to follow the decisions of the Supreme Court and the higher courts, and we don't just get to make it up.

Even if the judge doesn't like the decision that the law leads to, the judge must make that decision.

I've had to make some tough decisions where sometimes I do personally disagree with the law, but it is the law. And I'm confident with our system of government, the checks and balances, that we're called upon to apply the rule of law. And if people then want to change the law, then there are avenues to change it.

How does the judicial system correct errors?

If somebody is dissatisfied with the outcome-- because frankly, in every case one side wins and one side loses-- then they can take that case up to an appellate court. And the appellate court consists not just of one judge, but of three judges. If they're dissatisfied with that opinion, then they can take it to the full circuit court. And then finally, if they're dissatisfied with the circuit court opinion, they can take it all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

But if the people in general, or Congress, doesn't like what the Supreme Court did, they can try to get the law changed, or they can modify the law to make it more in sync with the Constitution. So there's always some place that you can go if you don't like what the court did.

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris reappears. 

(SPEECH)
For videos, podcasts, games, homework help and much more on judicial fairness, explore the educational resources section. 

[END PLAYBACK] 

(DESCRIPTION)
Video playback ends. A bar of playback settings appears under the video. 

(SPEECH)
MELINDA VAUGHN: All right. You'll notice a lot of these videos come from the U.S. Courts. A lot of the civics material that's out there is designed for K through 12 kids, so hopefully some of your kids are getting this in school. But that's part of why we developed this course because there's not a lot of content designed for adults. But I think that video addresses a lot of the issues we're talking about pretty well. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide text: Sentencing. U.S. Code says the judge should impose a sentence that is "sufficient, but not greater than necessary." An image of dense text on the slide shows a snippet of the U.S. judicial code. 

(SPEECH)
So I want to talk a little bit about sentencing. Sentencing is one of the most challenging parts of being a judge. Many judges struggle with the responsibility of determining the appropriate punishment for a person who's convicted of a crime. Depriving someone of life and liberty is a difficult and weighty job, and a lot of judges will say it's the hardest part of their job. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Factors for consideration. The nature and circumstances of the offense, The history and circumstances of the defendant, The seriousness of the offense, The need to promote respect for the law among the public, The need to protect the public from further crimes by the defendant, Whether the sentence should include vocational training, education, or medical treatment. 

(SPEECH)
Sentencing is also a really good illustration, I think, of the complexity of the judicial decision-making process. By law, a judge has the discretion to impose a sentence that is sufficient but not greater than necessary. Judges also must consider many factors identified by the federal sentencing statute. Those factors include the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history and circumstances of the defendant, the seriousness of the offense, the need to promote respect for the law among the public, the need to protect the public from future crimes by that defendant, and whether the sentence should include vocational training, education or medical treatment. 

(DESCRIPTION)
A piece of literature with a dark blue cover reads, UNITED STATES SENTENCING COMMISSION GUIDELINES MANUAL, 2023. The cover depicts the United States seal, with the eagle clutching an olive branch and arrows. The seal says, UNITED STATES SENTENCING COMMISSION. Text: Sentencing Guidelines. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines recommend sentences for specific crimes to bring consistency to sentencing. Most guidelines are advisory, not mandatory. 

(SPEECH)
Sentencing guidelines may also be considered. Sentencing guidelines offer recommended sentences for specific crimes based on a calculation of factors such as the severity of the crime and the defendant's criminal history. Most federal sentencing guidelines are now considered advisory, meaning federal judges can consider the recommendations but do not have to use them. But they offer a reference point for judges during the sentencing process. And in certain types of cases involving very serious crimes-- drug trafficking and firearms sorts of crimes-- mandatory minimum sentences may still apply. Many states also have their own sentencing laws and guidelines to provide guidance to state court judges, or to require mandatory minimum sentences for specific crimes. 

During a sentencing hearing, in addition to all of those other considerations, the judge may also hear from the defendant and the defendant's family, friends, and from the victim, and the victim's family and friends. And then all of those factors must be carefully weighed as a judge determines a sentence.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: We are mere mortals tasked with the sometimes impossible assignment of determining a sentence that is “sufficient, but not greater than necessary.” But sentencing judges do have very wide discretion, and, in all but a few cases, the decision of the sentencing judge is final.” Senior Judge Timothy Corrigan, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida. A cover of an issue of Judicature reads, Who appointed me God? Reflections of Judges on Criminal Sentencing. Published by the Duke Law School Center for Judicial Studies. The art on the cover depicts a vast swirling cloud of dark blue and green tones. A shaft of light piercing through the cloud shines on the silhouette of a judge at their bench. 

(SPEECH)
In an essay for Judicature-- that's the magazine that we produce here for federal judges-- Judge Timothy Corrigan, who's a retired chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, wrote about sentencing, and he wrote in very personal terms about the weight of the sentencing responsibility. 

And this is just a quote from the essay. "After a particularly difficult sentencing, I often say sometimes to myself, who appointed me God? Or why did I possibly think that I was the right person for this job? Or why did anyone possibly think I was the right person for this job?

Of course, I know that sentencing judges are not God. We are mere mortals tasked with the sometimes impossible assignment of determining a sentence that is sufficient, but not greater than necessary. But sentencing judges do have very wide discretion, and in all but a few cases, the decision of the sentencing judge is final." That's referring to the-- they can be appealed, but often they're not.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: You be the Judge. The Facts of the Case: Ms. Smith was found guilty by a jury of wire fraud that robbed investors of over $60 million. She made one phone call to facilitate the fraud. She acted at the behest of her mentor, a former law professor and the mastermind of the scheme. In abstract art on the slide, a man stands before a judge. A mirror separates the two. The judge looks at her reflection and the man looks at his own reflection, which appears behind bars. 

(SPEECH)
So as we conclude today, I want to lead just a short exercise in which you'll have the chance to be the judge and determine an appropriate sentence for a crime. So this is a hypothetical based on a real court case, but we've changed, obviously, a lot of the details. So here's our case. 

Ms. Smith has been found guilty by a jury of wire fraud. She's a young lawyer very early in her career. She made one phone call that helped defraud investors, ultimately, of more than $60 million.

The scheme wasn't her idea. She was a minor player and was manipulated by a former law professor and mentor who masterminded an entire Ponzi scheme. As the judge, you must determine Ms. Smith's sentence. So you'll receive input from the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the defendant, if she wishes to be heard, and possibly one or more of the victims of the crime if they wish to be heard.

(DESCRIPTION)

Text: In Ms. Smith's case: 1. Nature of the crime: wire fraud is serious, and there’s serious money involved. 2. Defendant’s background: young lawyer with personal struggles, no prior record. 3. Potential for further threat: Ms. Smith acknowledges the harm she caused and expresses deep remorse. 4. Sentencing Guidelines: 324 to 405 months — 27 to 33 years.

(SPEECH)
So in Ms. Smith's case, we have a few factors to consider. By law, we have to impose a sentence that is sufficient but not greater than necessary. We also need to consider the factors identified by the federal sentencing statute that we described earlier, including the nature and circumstances of the offense, history, and recommendations of the sentencing guidelines, which in this case are advisory and not mandatory. 

So the nature of the crime-- wire fraud is a serious crime, and the victims lost millions of dollars. And Ms. Smith played a small but significant role in enabling the fraud. The defendant's background-- she's a young lawyer. She got involved at the urging of an authority figure she trusted. She has said she had significant mental health issues she was navigating at the time of the crime, which she felt made her more susceptible to her mentor's influence.

She had known her mentor since law school, and he had helped her get the job that she has now. The mentor was a leader at a prestigious law firm. He was well respected and close to many people at the firm Ms. Smith worked for.

So potential for future threats-- she has expressed deep remorse and regret for her actions. She has acknowledged the harm she caused and said she had no intent to steal from or hurt anyone. She has no prior criminal record and seems unlikely to pose a further threat.

So, the sentencing guidelines recommend 324 to 405 months for this crime. That's 27 to 33 years in prison.

(DESCRIPTION)
On the next slide, the abstract defendant and judge art reappears. Text: What Would You Do? Given the facts of the case, would you impose a prison sentence of the recommended 324 to 405 months (27 to 33 years)? Why or why not? 

(SPEECH)
So what sentence would you impose? I think we have a poll. See if that pops up. All right, yeah, so I'll give you 10 seconds or so to weigh in on whether you'd give her no time in prison, less than 27 years, 27 to 33 years, which is what the sentencing guidelines recommend, or more than 33 years. 

All right, OK. So this is interesting. Eight percent of you said no time, 78% said less than 27 years. So less than the federal sentencing guidelines. Thirteen percent of you said 27 to 33 years, go with the sentencing guidelines. Nobody said more than 33 years.

That's interesting. I think you guys are-- when I've done this before, we were skewing more toward the sentencing guidelines. So you guys are being a little more lenient, maybe, than past groups have been.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: The Actual Sentence. The judge in the real case imposed a 60-month (5-year) sentence — a significant departure from the sentencing guidelines. “Nobody claims that Ms. Smith is a monster. [ellipsis] But that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences.” — Sentencing Judge. 

(SPEECH)
After weighing all these factors, the judge in the real case imposed a 60-month sentence. So that's five years-- a significant departure from the sentencing guidelines. 

The judge also spoke during the hearing-- sentencing to explain her decision. She said, nobody claims that Ms. Smith is a monster. If there's a monster in this case, we all know who it is-- it's the mastermind behind the scheme. But that doesn't mean there aren't consequences.

So I think you can use just the Q&A to weigh in on whether you think five years was appropriate, if that was a fair sentence given all the information that we weighed there. I hope that gives you a little bit of a sense of how difficult judging is. And it's also a really solitary job.

Judges don't have a lot of people to talk to about some of the challenges they face. They have a lot of discretion to decide cases in the way that they think is right, and we may not always agree with their decisions. In fact, we might often disagree, but we have a right to expect our judges to take their oaths seriously and to do their very best to administer justice without respect to persons, and to do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and to faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties we entrust to them. And as American citizens, it's our responsibility to hold judges accountable to these promises.

So in our next session next week, that's the session where we talk about how we can do that. It's our “The Courts and You” session, and we'll talk about where we get involved in the judiciary and how we can hold judges accountable. And that's it for today.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute, a Series on Civic Engagement. Take Our Survey: Link in chat. Watch Replays: Travelers Institute dot-org. Visit Bolch to Learn More. A QR code sits below the Bolch text toward the right. 

(SPEECH)
So, I did want to say I've seen some of these questions come in, and there was one question earlier about how an elected judge can remain unbiased. And I think your name was Eric. I hope you will ask that of our judges when we have them on March 24. We'll have a state court judge with us who has been elected, and I think it would be really great to hear her answer. Hi, Janice.

JANICE BRUNNER: Hi. Thanks so much, Melinda. That was great. I learned a lot today, and there's some questions that we had in our pre-survey chat, which I'd love to raise for you now. The first one is about impeachment. And how and under what circumstances can a judge be impeached?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yes. Impeachment is much in the news these days. So Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach the president, the vice president, federal judges, and other civil officers and agency heads.

(DESCRIPTION)
The slide disappears and Melinda’s and Janice's video call tiles sit at large size, side-by-side. 

(SPEECH)
And just to clarify something, there's impeachment, and then there's conviction. 

So the House of Representatives of Congress can vote to impeach with a majority vote, and then the Senate has to hold a trial in order to remove someone from office. And that takes two-thirds of a majority in the Senate to convict and remove. In order to be removed from office, the person has to be convicted of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, and only 21 civil officers, 15 of those were federal judges, have been impeached in our history.

So, three presidents have been impeached, but none were convicted and removed. One Senator was impeached and ultimately expelled, and the charges were dismissed. There was a Secretary of War, a Secretary of Homeland Security. The 15 judges who have been convicted and removed from office-- excuse me, 15 have been impeached, eight were convicted and removed, and four were ultimately found not guilty, and three resigned before they could be removed.

And so the things that they were being impeached for included things like improper business relationships with litigants in their courtroom, one guy was practicing law on the side while he was a judge. That's not OK. Tax evasion, perjury.

One was impeached and removed for sexual assault. False and misleading statements. So things that I think everyone would agree are worthy of impeachment, and in these cases, conviction.

Just there's never been a time when a judge has been removed-- convicted and removed simply because there was disagreement with a decision. But there have been lots of calls for impeachment through our history of judges who issued unpopular decisions.

JANICE BRUNNER: Thanks so much. That's an important distinction to keep in mind. Similar moving down the spectrum on that is, there has been talk of reforming the Supreme Court. What sorts of reforms have been discussed, and are they possible?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah, so President Biden in the last term had a bipartisan commission look at various ideas for reform of the Supreme Court, in part to respond to concerns that there's a decline in trust of the Supreme Court and federal courts, as well. And they looked at several ideas. And the one that I think there was the most support for was implementing 18-year terms for justices that would be non-renewable and staggered so that every president could nominate justices.

There's debate about whether that could require-- would require a constitutional amendment, because Article III expressly says that federal judges hold their office during good behavior, which has been interpreted to mean life tenure. Supporters think term limits would make the court better representative of election outcomes and make membership more predictable. So we don't have a justice die, and the kinds of controversies we've seen with nominations. Opponents worry that it would weaken the Constitution's protection of judicial independence and just formally politicize the confirmation process, because then every president would-- we have this to some extent now where there are lists of here are the kinds of judges I would appoint, and that would become part of the election process, and introduce more politicization of the court.

So I think there are arguments on both sides. And whether it could be done is still, I think, undecided. Another reform that's been mentioned is adding more justices to the court. And the Biden commission didn't like that idea.

I think there's a concern there that it becomes a tit for tat. One president might add some. Another one might add some. And it might ultimately diminish the court's independence and legitimacy. So FDR, President Roosevelt, had threatened to expand the court, and ultimately did not after a lot of political pressure.

There are some other reforms that have been talked about for a long time that are less earth-shattering, but still controversial. One is to get cameras in the Supreme Court so that when they're having oral arguments or issuing decisions, there's a camera in the court. The court has been very resistant to that. And until the pandemic, they wouldn't even allow audio.

Now you can hear audio livestreams of oral arguments. But I think there's a lot of-- maybe this is from Congress, this idea that the folks perform for a camera, and the court maybe doesn't want to introduce that to the courtroom. And ultimately, the Biden commission didn't make any recommendations. They explored all of these ideas. There's lots of research on all these ideas, but no one has proposed any formal changes as of now.

JANICE BRUNNER: We will see. The cameras in the court is an interesting one. I think one thing that would be helpful for people is just to read the opinions. So the opinions are always available on the Supreme Court's website, and it's fascinating. You can really get a lot of insight into the argument on both sides because usually, the opinions contain several dissents or concurrence. So you really start to see how the justices think and why they made the decision they did.

So I think it's one of those ways to really learn a lot more about what was going on in that particular instance beyond what's often reported in the popular press, which is so short. And once you read the opinions, hopefully, I think you also-- it really helps you to understand what a complex and thoughtful process it is. Even if you don't agree with the majority opinion, and you agree with the dissent, I think oftentimes you at least start to feel a little more comfortable about why they made the decision that they did.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Absolutely. Yep, I totally agree.

JANICE BRUNNER: Next question we have is I've heard of judge shopping. How does that work?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yes, that's a term that's also been in the news lately. So plaintiffs who are suing the federal government can file in any district in which they can establish a local connection. And when a case is filed in federal court, it generally goes through case assignments. So there's a random assignment of cases to a judge that's eligible out of a general pool.

But there are some quirks in the structure of the courts that allow lawyers to bypass that and handpick the judges that they think will be sympathetic. There are some federal district court divisions that just have one judge. So if you file in that division, you know who's going to hear your case.

And there are some courts that have a reputation for having more liberal or more conservative judges. So lawyers might file their case in that district where even a random assignment is more likely to lead to an outcome that they want. I think both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have recognized that that process can damage public trust in the system, and Chief Justice John Roberts has stated that the principle of random case assignment is really important to maintaining public confidence in the courts.

I think it would require a congressional rule or court rules to change that process. But right now, there's not enough agreement on all sides. And I think it tends to be, when it goes your way, you like it. When it doesn't go your way, you don't like it. So whether that gets changed remains to be seen.

JANICE BRUNNER: It's very complicated. It's like you push one lever and the other-- it's really a balancing act. Reminds me of those scales of justice. That's a very appropriate representation.

Do judges engage in any sort of ongoing education or professional development?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. So there's no educational requirement to become a judge. Most states require that you hold a law degree, but you don't go to law school to become a judge. And really, most law schools wouldn't even offer classes in anything to do with what it would take to be a judge. So when people are appointed or elected to judgeships, the federal and the state courts usually have some sort of training program. I think in the federal courts they call it baby judge school, where they offer a few days of sessions on how to do the administrative management of being a judge, how to manage cases, how to work with jurors, how to work with court staff, sentencing guidelines, those sorts of things. Sometimes they'll include discussion of specific areas of law that the judges may not have studied in law school, but that might come up in cases.

And beyond that, there are lots of conferences that judges attend offered by their courts or professional organizations. The Bolch Institute offers a number of conferences. Lawyers have to do CLE to maintain licensure, but judges are usually exempt from that. So some of the programs that they might do, they're not necessarily required to do.

I will say that our institute offers the only-- a master's program for judges. So you have to be a sitting judge to do it. You have to be able to get a full month off of your case docket one summer, and then the next summer to come and be in classes all day, every day. But that program is one way we try to provide some additional support for judges.

JANICE BRUNNER: So interesting. It strikes me that most judges have to really understand at least a little bit about so many different topics because so much is coming before the court. And you really learn a lot about all sorts of different things that are at issue in the case.

The next question we have is, I've heard new reports about an increase in threats against judges. Can you talk about what those threats are and the impact they have on judges?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. So the chief justice, John Roberts, wrote about this in his-- he does an annual report every year on the federal judiciary. And he wrote about this in his report that came out in December. He said that the U.S. Marshals Service has reported that the volume of hostile threats and communications directed at judges has more than tripled over the past 10 years or so.

And in the past five years alone, the marshals have investigated more than 1,000 serious threats against federal judges. So those aren't just your run-of-the-mill threat that someone posts on X. It's a serious and credible threat to a judge's safety.

And in several instances, the marshals are-- they’re assigning details to judges. They've had to change court security practices, and about 50 people, I think, have been criminally charged with threats to judges. And in some, we've heard of some judges who've been issued bulletproof vests.

So it's a serious issue right now. And in recent decades, three federal judges, and two state court judges, and three family members of judges have been killed by disgruntled litigants from a judge's courtroom. So those kinds of attacks are really scary to judges. I think they're very worried about that, and they're taking steps to improve their own security, courtroom security.

There's also concerns that those sorts of attacks, even when they're empty threats posted on social media, can do some-- it can intimidate judges, can make them worry about the kinds of decisions they make and whether someone might be angry enough about it to hurt them or hurt their family. I think the judges would say that that doesn't happen, that they take their oath seriously, they uphold the law, they do what they need to do. And they know coming into it that someone's always going to be unhappy.

But I think the climate right now is a frightening one, and one that they have to take into consideration every day with the security of their building and the way they handle their work.

JANICE BRUNNER: It's terrifying. And we certainly want the most qualified people to be judges, and we want to encourage people to serve. So that's a very unfortunate development.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. And I think-- that’s a-- I mean, that's an important consideration, too. I think that it does create this sense of this is a dangerous job, and does it factor into somebody's decision whether to run for election or seek an appointment? I think for all of us, we have to accept that there are winners and losers, and that we're not always going to like the outcome of a case. But that doesn't justify calling judges names or threatening them.

I do want to just make a distinction, too. I think especially in the academy, in a law school, there are lots of discussions about judges getting it wrong. And this case was decided wrongly, and here's why. And I think that's really important to protect.

And I think judges expect that their rulings will be criticized. It's that personal aspect and the threats of violence and harm that have increased so much and have become so problematic.

JANICE BRUNNER: And trust in the appellate process. So that if a judge does make a decision that isn't consistent with the law, that the process will sort that out versus taking the law into your own hands.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Absolutely.

JANICE BRUNNER: How do judges deal with their own biases, and what can be done if a judge is obviously biased in a case they are handling?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah, so this is a question I hope we'll discuss when the judges join us on the 24th. I can say that in just talking with a lot of judges, they generally know that they bring some bias to their life. We all have experiences, and perspectives, and viewpoints, and recognizing that is one way that judges can work to overcome it.

So they identify and recognize bias and do what they can to explicitly review their own work to make sure that that bias doesn't affect their decisions. And ultimately, the best check is the opinion writing process. I mean, they have to spell everything out. They have to show their work, and so you can see them and how they defend their thinking and spell out the laws and precedents that come into play.

And my observation is that most judges try really hard to get it right. They don't want to be overturned. It's like a point of pride, like I've never been overturned by my circuit or something. They really want to get it right for their colleagues, even.

Federal law and the codes of conduct we talked about, they require a judge to step aside in a case where their impartiality might be reasonably questioned. So that usually relates to a personal connection to the litigant, or a personal or family financial stake in the outcome of a case. And most judges give the clerk of their court a list of parties for whom they would have a conflict-- so like the law firm they used to work for, or if they have some investments or where their family might be invested.

And that usually eliminates the potential of a case being assigned to that judge where they might have a conflict, but not always. And sometimes, litigants may feel the judge is not impartial. They can file a motion to recuse, and the judge then decides whether to recuse. If the judge refuses, the litigants can file what's called a motion for a writ of mandamus, asking the appellate court to order the judge to recuse. And then it's up to the appellate court.

But generally, the judge is presumed to be impartial unless parties can prove that they're not. And for the most part, whether to recuse is usually up to the judge. And it's not uncommon for judges to recuse, but there are examples of judges who are asked to step aside, and they choose not to.

And there are calls for reform in this area in order to improve transparency and enforcement, but there's also some concern that tougher rules could create mass disqualifications. If you have a portfolio of investments in your 401(k), and every judge is in the one for their year of retirement, does it create a problem where you have so many judges who are disqualified that you can't get cases through in an already really clogged and backlogged system? And then there are concerns about limiting judges, the free speech for their family members, their spouses, their kids, where they work.

So again, it's a balancing act of how do you get to the best answer? And that's not always clear.

JANICE BRUNNER: Very true. Like many things in life, it's very complicated. Also, I do think there's some comfort in the fact that often there's a panel of judges. So as you said, they are being-- their decisions are being considered by their peers.

They are part of-- Supreme Court, for example, there are their peers who are watching what they're doing, so to speak, by having to join in an opinion and having to put their name on something, as well. So that's helpful.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah.

JANICE BRUNNER: So I don't know, Melinda, if there's any other questions in the chat that you want to answer, or we'll leave them for our judges, which is the fourth session.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. Just scamming-- or scanning through here. Several questions I think that will be great for the judges. There's a comment here from someone who's a mediator and about judges sending cases to mediation.

And we talk a little bit about that next time, the decline in jury trials and why that's happening. So we'll get a little bit of that next week. And then I think that's a really good one to ask the judges, as well. And then questions about how they overcome their bias even after being elected, I think, would be great to pose.

So yeah, I mean, just so everyone knows, I can see these questions. So we're making a list for the judges. There is a question here about signing up for the other webinars, which I think you all are sending information out. But we'll have one more session that I'll lead next week, and then the following Monday will be a Q&A with the judges.

And I believe you all are posting these so that people can watch last week's if they didn't--

JANICE BRUNNER: Correct.

MELINDA VAUGHN: OK. The other thing I just would say is, like, the U.S. Courts, they post a lot of information about the courts and videos. And so if you're interested in these topics, there's a lot of really good content out there to learn, and about some of these really specific issues, too. So I think part of what we hope this course does is just get people really interested in the subject and in learning more. There's some really great podcasts. So, it's just great to see people wanting to do this and wanting to learn more.

JANICE BRUNNER: Completely agree. A huge thank you to Melinda for the fantastic discussion today. And as a reminder, the replay will be available in a few days. Please join us next Monday for our next session, “The Courts and You.” And by attending all four sessions, you will be eligible to receive a certificate of completion and a T-shirt. We'll see you next week. Thank you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute, a Series on Civic Engagement. Watch Replays: Travelers Institute dot-org. Logo: LinkedIn. Text: Connect: Janice G. Brunner. Take Our Survey. Link in chat. Hashtag Citizen Travelers. 

Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute, a Series on Civic Engagement.

(DESCRIPTION)
This content is brought to you by Travelers. 

A slideshow presentation. Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute. A Series on Civic Engagement.

The speaker's video is on the top right, and the slides are on the left. Slide: Civics Break: A Course on the Judiciary with Duke Law. The Courts and You. Logos: Citizen Travelers (service mark). Bolch Judicial Institute, Duke Law. Civics Break.

(SPEECH)
JANICE BRUNNER: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. I'm Janice Brunner, Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement for Travelers. And I'm happy to welcome you this afternoon to our special Citizen Travelers at the Travelers Institute program with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law. Citizen Travelers is our aggressively nonpartisan initiative to empower Travelers employees to take part in the civic life of their communities while building leadership and professional skills. 

Our democracy depends on informed and engaged citizens. And when people better understand how our democracy works, they're better equipped to engage in civil dialogue, take constructive action and invest in their communities, all of which is good for business. It's with this in mind that we are pleased to host a series of programs on the judiciary with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke University Law School.

This third course in our series of four explores the courts and you. Before we begin, I'd like to share a disclaimer about today's program.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: About Today's Webinar. Text: This webinar is supported by Citizen Travelers, the civic engagement initiative of The Travelers Indemnity Co., for informational and educational purposes only. The non-partisan views expressed by the speakers and/or the Bolch Judicial Institute and its employees are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Travelers or any of its employees. Travelers disclaims responsibility for any publication or statement by any of the speakers and/or Bolch Judicial Institute. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. 

(SPEECH)
I'd also like to invite you to take the pre-course survey that is available through the link in the chat, if you haven't already accessed it through the QR code on the opening slide. I'd also ask you to submit questions now and throughout the program. Drop your questions in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. 

With that, I'm thrilled to be joined today by our amazing guest.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Speakers. Two profile pictures of the speakers. On the left is a woman with blond hair wearing a white shirt under a black jacket. Text: Janice Brunner. Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement, Travelers. On the right is a woman with red hair wearing a salmon blouse and a necklace. Text: Melinda Vaughn. Deputy Director, Bolch Judicial Institute. 

(SPEECH)
Melinda Vaughn is Deputy Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Melinda oversees the development and implementation of educational programs, conferences, events, communications and multimedia projects designed to support and strengthen the judiciary and to improve the public understanding of the rule of law and the role of the judicial branch. 

She is also Managing Editor of Judicature, a scholarly journal about judging produced by the Institute for Federal and State Judges. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Melinda. And now I'll turn it over to you to tell us more about understanding the judge's job.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: The Courts and You. Logo: Civics Break. Text: Presented by the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law School. Logo: Duke Law. Bolch Judicial Institute. 

(SPEECH)
MELINDA VAUGHN: Thanks, Janice. Hi, everybody. It's great to be here. I really appreciate so many of you participating in this program and being here today. Today's session is actually my favorite, I think. It's focused on the courts and you and what our individual and our collective roles are in supporting and strengthening the judicial branch. 

So, I want to start today by asking a question, and you can use the Q&A to fill in some responses. But I want you to start by thinking about a positive interaction that you've had with a government agency. And I think it's not as tough as it sounds if you start to think about it. I'll give an example of mine just to get you thinking.

I, during the pandemic, volunteered at a voting station. I was a poll assistant, and I helped run the 2020 presidential election and the vote in our community. And it was so awesome. It was really cool to be surrounded by a lot of volunteers and people who really cared about voting, about the government, about making sure that people had an opportunity during a really difficult time to voice their opinions and be involved in our governance. So I think voting is an example.

I'm going to look and see if you all are sharing some other ideas. Jury selection. I'm so glad somebody mentioned juries. Working with International Affairs Department or through local police, filing a complaint, and getting through arbitration to let my voice be heard. That's a great one. Oh, someone mentions that their local town tax office is friendly.

That’s, I think, just personal interactions with government employees can be really positive. Yeah, a lot of local community engagement that has been really good. Oh, someone had a good interaction at the DMV. That's terrific. And I would say the same thing. I've had positive interactions at the DMV, not every time, but often.

Oh, we have someone on here who's been on a federal jury. That's great. TSA, that's a good one. In the past, somebody-- people have mentioned libraries, which are usually run by a county or city. Passport renewal going smoothly, that's a good one. Helping asylum seekers get work authorization, that's terrific. Great work.

A team leader for a survey and Postal Service. So, yes, lots of really, really good examples of positive interactions with government.

(DESCRIPTION)
A photo of a courtroom and the Text: I have to appear in court. 

(SPEECH)
Nobody mentioned going to court outside of jury service. So going to court is not often a good experience. You might be a party to a case or a witness in a trial or supporting a friend or a family member who's facing charges. 

And those can be really difficult circumstances. But even in those cases, we hope that everyone who comes to the court is treated fairly and that everyone who works at the court fulfills their duties appropriately and in accordance with their role and responsibilities. So today, we're talking about the ways in which we as citizens interact with the courts outside of being a party to a case, where we are instead participants in the work of the courts as participants in a democratic society.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: The Rights of Citizenship. Text: Freedom to express yourself. Freedom to worship as you wish. Right to a prompt, fair trial by jury. Right to vote in elections for public officials. Right to apply for federal employment. Right to run for elected office. Freedom to pursue "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." A photo on the right shows people holding American flags and raising their right hands. 

(SPEECH)
So we don't often have the chance to stop and think about what it means to be citizens. But one way that I find helpful to consider our role as citizens is through the lens of a new immigrant to our country because they're required to pass a citizenship. So immigrants who become U.S. citizens are often fairly well educated and fairly optimistic about how our government works and what we as citizens can do to ensure the continued functioning of our democracy. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: The Responsibilities of Citizenship. Text: Support and defend the Constitution. Stay informed of the issues affecting your community. Participate in the democratic process. Respect and obey federal, state, and local laws. Respect the rights, beliefs, and opinions of others. Participate in your local community. Pay income and other taxes honestly and on time. Serve on a jury when called upon. Defend the country if the need should arise. 

(SPEECH)
So the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service provides an overview of the rights and responsibilities that come with being an American citizen. Our rights include the freedom to express ourselves, to worship as we wish, to receive a prompt and fair trial by jury, to vote in elections, to apply for federal employment, run for elected office, and to pursue life, liberty and happiness. 

We also have the responsibility to support and defend the Constitution, to stay informed of the issues affecting our communities, to participate in the democratic process, to respect and obey the law, respect the rights and opinions of others, to participate in our communities, pay our taxes, serve on a jury when called and to defend the country if the need should arise.

(DESCRIPTION)
A sketch of a jury. Text: Jury Duty: It's not voluntary! 

(SPEECH)
So we're going to talk a little bit about jury service. Jury service appears on both the rights and the responsibilities lists there. We have a responsibility to participate as jurors when called. We have the right to be tried by a jury of our peers. I think we have a poll. I'm curious to know, if you've ever served on a jury, whether you would give the experience a thumbs up or thumbs down. 

So, yes, here's our poll. So I'll leave that open for maybe 10, 15 seconds. If you've been on a jury, thumbs up, thumbs down, or never served?

(DESCRIPTION)
The poll does not appear on the screen. 

(SPEECH)
Give you a second to respond there. I have been on a jury. It was a long time ago in Los Angeles, and it was a really, really interesting experience. 

So here, I've got the results. So 32% of you who've participated give it a thumbs up. Five percent who participated on a jury gave it a thumbs down. And most of you, 64%, have never served on a jury. That's disappointing but not surprising that so many of you haven't had that opportunity.

Jury service is fundamental to the functioning of the courts and perhaps the most direct way that we as citizens can engage in the judicial process. A recent poll found that 1 in 10 Americans have served on a jury and that those who had served were generally more likely to trust the judicial system. Jury duty is not voluntary. So if you receive a jury summons, with very few exceptions, you're required to participate.

I will say, participation is easier now than it was 20 years ago when I was on a jury in LA, where we had to sit in the jury room every day for 10 days, waiting to be called. And most of the time now, you can call ahead to find out if you're needed. But it is a really, really interesting experience and opportunity to see the system at work. So we're going to share a video here in which federal judges will talk a little bit about their perspectives on the importance of jury service.

(DESCRIPTION)
A video player opens. Text: U.S. Courts. Jury Service. Hands-on Justice. Judges face us one by one against a blue background. Text: Chief Judge Juan Sanchez. U.S. District Court, Philadelphia, PA. 

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

(SPEECH)
JUAN SANCHEZ: Jury duty is direct participation in our democracy. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Judge Catherine Perry. U.S. District Court, St. Louis, MO. 

(SPEECH)
CATHERINE PERRY: I'm not the one deciding the case. The jury is. And I always respect their verdict, whether I agree with it or not. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Chief Judge Rodney Sippel. U.S. District Court, St. Louis, MO. 

(SPEECH)
RODNEY SIPPEL: Judges only decide issues of law. Juries decide the outcome of the case. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Judge Reggie Walton. U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C. 

(SPEECH)
REGGIE WALTON: In order for the law to have the respect of the citizenry, it's important that the citizenry be a part of that decision-making process. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui. U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C. 

(SPEECH)
ZIA FARUQUI: Think about what it is. It's called a jury of your peers because who better to judge you than people who have walked a mile in your shoes? 

JUAN SANCHEZ: It gives the system legitimacy. We are all invested in it. It is your system, my system.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Judge Cynthia Rufe. U.S. District Court, Philadelphia, PA. 

(SPEECH)
CYNTHIA RUFE: If it's done in a fair way, no one can assail it. 

RODNEY SIPPEL: Our Founding Fathers put the right to a jury trial in the Declaration of Independence and embodied it in the Bill of Rights. There was a reason it is fundamentally important. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Judge Martha Vazquez. U.S. District Court, Santa Fe, NM. 

(SPEECH)
MARTHA VAZQUEZ: And the reason we stand in the courtroom when you enter, it's in recognition of the most critical role that you play. 

[UPBEAT MUSIC] 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: What can I expect as a Juror? 

(SPEECH)
CYNTHIA RUFE: Most jury trials take less than three days. It could be a one-day trial, but more likely two to three days.

RODNEY SIPPEL: There are obviously exceptions. Those are the ones you read about in the paper that may last for a week or more. 

CYNTHIA RUFE: You're always warned in the selection process how long the case is expected to take so that there are no surprises.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Judge Kiyo Matsumoto. U.S. District Court, Brooklyn, NY. 

(SPEECH)
KIYO MATSUMOTO: You should take very seriously your obligation to serve on a jury, unless you cannot be fair-minded and impartial. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: What is expected of me as a Juror? Chief Judge Scott Skavdahl. U.S. District Court, Casper, WY. 

(SPEECH)
SCOTT SKAVDAHL: Can you fairly and impartially hear the evidence, the arguments of the parties, follow the law as set forth in the Constitution or the statutes, and apply it without bias or prejudice to one side or the other? 

REGGIE WALTON: You ask whether they have any perceptions about the justice system that would make it impossible for them to be fair and impartial.

MARTHA VAZQUEZ: What a jury does in the most basic sense is determine credibility, assess situations.

JUAN SANCHEZ: We live in a system where no one could be deprived of life, liberty or property without consulting the citizens, you, directly.

CYNTHIA RUFE: They're not choosing sides. They're sitting there as arbiters of justice, just as I am, only they get to decide the facts, which I tell them only they can do.

[UPBEAT MUSIC] 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: What happens during Deliberations? Judge Beth Bloom. U.S. District Court, Miami, FL. 

(SPEECH)
BETH BLOOM: It's a collective process. We have an amazing system where six or 12 jurors have to agree unanimously, but in order to get there, they need to discuss the issues. 

JUAN SANCHEZ: In the jury instruction, there's a section at the end where I talk a little bit about civility, that it is important to be respectful to each other, to listen carefully to each other's views.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Magistrate Judge Linda Anderson. U.S. District Court, Jackson, MS. 

(SPEECH)
LINDA ANDERSON: The things that I remind others is that you want to treat others as you want to be treated, you want your viewpoint to be heard in the jury room, then it's incumbent upon you to listen to the opposite viewpoint as well. 

KIYO MATSUMOTO: They care. They're engaged. They pay attention. They deliberate. And they reach a verdict. And that is a wonderful process that I think is a very important process of our civil way of life.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: How is the jury the voice of the Community? 

(SPEECH)
JUAN SANCHEZ: Now, I believe that it's really important for citizens to be engaged and to participate. 

CATHERINE PERRY: The jury pool should reflect the community at large.

REGGIE WALTON: A lot of people have the perspective that somehow there's only a certain elite group of people who are called to the courthouse to participate in the jury process. That's not true.

ZIA FARUQUI: So many of us want an opportunity to serve our community. We don't know how we can do it. Well, this is a fundamental way that you can ensure our democracy is vibrant and effective, is by jury service.

MARTHA VAZQUEZ: And it is imperative that we reach out and that we make these communities know this is your courtroom. This is your legal system, both as a defendant and as a victim, and you must participate in order for it to be fair.

[UPBEAT MUSIC] 

(DESCRIPTION)
Icons of people raising their hands up in front of a courthouse. One of the icons becomes the J in the text: U.S. Courts. Jury Service. Hands-On Justice. 

(SPEECH)
MELINDA VAUGHN: OK. So we're going to talk a little bit more about juries. 

(DESCRIPTION)
A painting of men in a jury box. Text: The Petit Jury. 12 jurors plus alternates selected from jury pool (venire). Attorneys can ask questions (voir dire) and eliminate potential jurors from the pool based on potential bias - but they cannot discriminate against groups. Jurors serve for the duration of a specific case. Jurors review the facts of the case, determine if defendant(s) committed a crime, and render verdict. Verdict must be unanimous to convict the defendant in criminal cases. 

(SPEECH)
There are two types of juries in our country. We are generally most familiar with the work of jurors who serve on what's called a petit jury. I'm sure I'm not getting the French right there. That's the trial jury that serves as the fact finder in a case and decides on the verdict. 

And if you're summoned for jury duty, you are most likely going to serve on a petit jury. You'll be part of a jury pool called the venire from which a judge can select jurors for a particular case. And during what's called the voir dire process, attorneys can ask questions of the potential jurors, and they can move to eliminate a certain number of people that they think might be particularly biased based on their answers to those questions. But they cannot remove jurors simply because of the juror's identity.

Petit jurors serve for the duration of the case. They hear and review evidence, and they render a verdict.

(DESCRIPTION)
A black and white photo of men standing outside a building. Text: The Grand Jury. 16-23 jurors who meet regularly over long periods of time. Review evidence presented by prosecutor to determine whether charges should be brought. Grand juries are required in federal felony cases and many state criminal cases. Grand jury must find probable cause that a crime was committed in order to bring charges (petit jury must find the evidence shows guilt beyond reasonable doubt). Grand jury does not render a verdict. 

(SPEECH)
The other type of jury is the grand jury, which you may have heard of. A grand jury meets as needed over several months, or even up to a year, to review evidence from the prosecutor and to determine whether that evidence is sufficient to bring criminal charges, in other words, to indict someone. 

In some cases, grand jurors may interview witnesses and even inspect the scene of a crime. The photo here is a grand jury inspecting the scene of a Boston hotel fire in 1913. The use of grand juries is required in all federal felony cases and in many state criminal cases.

This typically means that before anyone can be charged with a federal crime, a grand jury, usually made up of 16 or to 23, somewhere in there, number of regular citizens, that group must find that the evidence shows probable cause of a crime. In order to convict a defendant during trial, petit jury members must find that the evidence shows guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So there are two different standards there.

The jurors' role in our court system is fundamental to the founders' vision for our courts and the checks and balances system of our government, as the judges were talking about in the video. The founders believed that assigning citizens the important functions of fact finding and deciding the verdict would help shield trials from political influence, ensure an impartial review of evidence and give people a direct opportunity to uphold community standards.

And today, jury service is really one of the best opportunities you might have to see the judicial system at work and to do your civic duty. So I hope if you get summons one day-- I hope you'll have the opportunity to serve.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Vote! Text: Vote for executive and legislative leaders who will nominate judges and create the law. Vote for judges in local and state elections - they handle 90% of our country's court cases. A drawing of a hand holding a ballot. 

(SPEECH)
In addition to jury service, voting is another core right and responsibility of citizenship that directly affects our judicial system. So we've talked about federal judges are not elected, but we can vote for the president and the senators, who nominate and confirm judges to the bench. 

And we can vote for members of Congress, who have the power to pass laws and draft constitutional amendments that directly affect the power and structure of the federal court system. And in many states, voters also directly elect judges and state supreme court justices. And state judges have a tremendous impact in your local community and in the development of law generally. In fact, we've talked about this 90% to 95% of all the court cases in our country are heard in state courts.

And state courts are also the place where many federal judges got their start. So I think we have another quick poll here. I wanted to see if you know whether you live in a state where judges are elected. I'm hoping you know. And so it's just a yes or a no or I don't know. Do you have an opportunity to vote for judges in your state? So we'll leave that open for 10 seconds or so.

(DESCRIPTION)
The poll does not appear on the screen. 

(SPEECH)
Let's see where we stand. In North Carolina, we vote for judges in state courts. So let's see. On the poll, 61% of you said yes, you live in a state where judges are elected, 17% said no, and 21% said I don't know. So I hope if you don't know, after this, you'll look and see. And I hope that if you live in a state where judges are elected, that you'll take the opportunity to make your voice heard. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: What to look for in a judge. Text: Integrity, Professional Competence, Judicial Temperament, Experience, Service. 

(SPEECH)
There are some ways to evaluate judicial candidates. It's maybe not quite as clear-cut as a political candidate. So we're going to share some recommendations from the National Association for Women Judges. That organization put together a list of suggestions for traits that you should look for in candidates. 

So, integrity. A judge should be honest, capable of being impartial and committed to the rule of law. They should demonstrate professional competence. They should have a keen intellect, extensive legal knowledge and strong writing skills. So they should have been probably successful as a lawyer or maybe as a law scholar.

They should demonstrate judicial temperament. So this is maybe something you need to gauge in listening to someone speak, but someone who is neutral and decisive, respectful, and composed. Experience. A judge should have a strong record of professional excellence in the law. And service. A judge should be committed to public service and the administration of justice.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: How to learn about candidates. Text: Web sites and voter guides. The local bar association. Voter information sessions and newspaper endorsements. Disciplinary records (for attorneys & judges). Discuss with people whose opinions you value. Consider who is paying for any advertising. 

(SPEECH)
So learning about whether candidates have these qualities can be a challenge, but there are several ways that you can do it. Usually, during an election period, there will be websites and voter guides provided by nonpartisan groups. The League of Women Voters is one that I look at. They provide really good, neutral information about candidates. 

Your local bar association-- so that's the professional organization that lawyers belong to-- they usually will offer ratings on the candidates or can give you access to other information, such as judicial performance evaluations if the candidate has already been a judge. And a state bar organization, the umbrella group that provides licensure to lawyers, they keep disciplinary records on lawyers. And so you can look there if it's a lawyer who's a candidate.

And then state judicial councils, which we talked about last week, the organizations that provide ethics guidelines for judges and also handle complaints against judges, they provide records on judicial candidates or people who have already been a judge when they're running for office. So you can look up some records about the candidates.

You can attend voting information sessions and review newspaper endorsements and discuss what you're thinking about with people whose opinions matter to you. Some other people may have had interactions with candidates or have seen them in action in some professional setting. And then the last one I really stress. Just consider who is paying for any advertising.

A lot of these judicial elections at the state level have become highly politicized and very expensive, with a lot of advertising. And I think it's important to just consider the group that is paying for advertising and what they may be looking for.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Speak up! A photo of people gathered on the steps of a government building. Text: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances. 

(SPEECH)
So voicing your opinions as a participant in our democracy is also a right and a responsibility of citizenship. 

The founders considered free speech and expression essential to our democracy, so much so that they protected the freedom of speech and our right to peaceably assemble for redress of grievances in the First Amendment of the Constitution. That's what you see on the screen here. Free speech has been curtailed at various points in our history, but over the last century or so, the Supreme Court has adopted a fairly robust protection for free speech, especially political speech because political debate and discourse are so critical to a healthy democracy.

The First Amendment protects our right to criticize the work of the courts and to speak out when we think a decision is wrong and to voice our concerns and opposition to our public and elected officials.

(DESCRIPTION)
A screenshot of a website titled, Thom Tillis, U.S. Senator of North Carolina, includes a contact form. 

(SPEECH)
So how do we voice concerns? One way is to talk to your elected representatives about judicial nominations and policy issues that affect the courts and ask them how they plan to vote on legislation that you care about. And when courts make decisions that we don't like, we can ask our legislators to change the laws. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Reform. Text: Congress and the President have imposed changes on the courts' size, structure, place and time of meeting, and jurisdiction beyond Constitutional mandate. Scholars debate how much authority the political branches can exercise over the third branch and the processes required for certain reforms. Current proposals for reform include: Mandatory retirement age, Limited terms for Supreme Court justices, Stricter requirements for financial reporting, Changes to nominations process, Make it harder to overturn precedent. An Oliver Twist comic on the left shows a large grinning man titled, The Executive Branch of the Government, holding a big bowl and spoon labeled Power, and, Reorganization Program. He says, More, please! as he holds out the bowl to a small man in a chef's outfit labeled, Congress, who stands beside a steaming pot. 

(SPEECH)
The executive and the legislative branches also have significant power over the structure of the courts, including the Supreme Court. And throughout our country's history, Congress and the president have imposed a number of changes on the courts. We've talked a little bit about this. And several reforms are percolating today. 

There's debate about whether the political branches have the authority to enact some of these reforms that are discussed. And the Supreme Court would probably have to consider the constitutionality of some of these proposals. I mentioned last week, some people think any change to the concept of life tenure would require a constitutional amendment.

But reforms are under discussion all the time. Last week, I think I talked about the Biden commission and some of the proposals that they discussed. Last year, a senator introduced a bill that would have increased the size of the Supreme Court from nine to 15 justices. It would have made it harder for justices to overturn laws. It would have required justices to undergo financial audits. And it would have removed some roadblocks for high court nominations.

If any of those proposals sound good or bad to you, you can write your congressional representatives and voice your opinion. And you can research political candidates' positions on such reforms when you vote. A lot of senators in Congress, people will talk about these issues when they're running, and they may have statements on their websites. So that's research you can do to find out where your representatives stand.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: States as laboratories. Three state flags are beside the text: New Hampshire recently voted on an amendment to the state constitution to raise the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75. Arizona voted on a constitutional amendment to eliminate judicial term limits and end retention elections. Colorado voted on a constitutional amendment to establish a new judicial discipline board composed of judges, attorneys, and citizens to take the judicial discipline process out of the hands of the state's supreme court. 

(SPEECH)
And many of the reforms that are really hotly debated at the federal level are old hat in the states. State courts are subject to far more change and reform than federal courts simply because it's easier to pass new laws in the states and even amendments to the constitutions. It also means that state courts tend to be incubators, in a way. They're trying new things out all the time, and some of them wind up influencing other states and federal courts. 

In 2024, last year, there were well over 300 proposed bills across the states relating to courts. There are also a number of ballot initiatives. So in addition to what state legislatures may be looking at, there may be ballot initiatives, where voters directly vote on changes to the judicial system. They might be creating or eliminating mandatory term or age limits for judges or changing the judicial discipline process. So the screen here highlights a few proposals that were on the ballot in different states last year.

(DESCRIPTION)
A portrait of Thomas Jefferson and a quote. Text: A well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny. President Thomas Jefferson. 

(SPEECH)
So there are often issues that you can vote on directly and ways to research those. So President Thomas Jefferson once said, "A well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny." Being informed citizens also is another important way we fulfill our civic duties. When we are responsible consumers of information about our courts, we're better prepared to engage as jurors, as voters and as defenders of the rule of law. 

But being a responsible consumer of information today is kind of hard, right?

(DESCRIPTION)
A picture of Al Gore and a quote. Text: The well-informed citizenry is in danger of becoming the well-amused audience. Vice President Al Gore. 

(SPEECH)
Former Vice President Al Gore once said, "The well-informed citizenry is in danger of becoming the well-amused audience." And that makes me chuckle, I think, partly because I feel like it's true, right? A lot of people don't read newspapers or even watch television news anymore. If they read the news, they might only look at specific websites or newsletters that provide a narrow view on current events, or they may only read news on social media, which is full of disinformation and misinformation. 

And getting news about the courts is particularly tricky. Traditional media, the big newspapers and television news, often only cover big cases and controversies and ignore the day-to-day work of the courts, which can lead to us having a distorted view on how well the system works.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Disinformation versus Misinformation. Text: It's about intent. Disinformation is information that is intended to distort the truth. You know it's not true, but you say it anyway. Misinformation is false information that someone believes is true. You think it's true but it's not. 

(SPEECH)
So how can we become well-informed citizens? 

A key first step is knowing the role of disinformation and misinformation in today's national discourse. So disinformation is information that is intended to distort the truth. Misinformation is false information that someone believes is true. So you might see something that is disinformation, believe it, and then you spread it, and it's misinformation as well. You believe that it's true. You're not trying to distort the truth, but some people are.

So I'm curious. I think we have another poll here. I just am curious to know whether you think you have encountered misinformation or disinformation online. Let's see if that poll-- do we have a poll there? Maybe not. Oh, there it is. All right, we'll keep that open for 10 seconds or so, so whether you think you've encountered misinformation or disinformation online.

(DESCRIPTION)
The poll does not appear on the screen. 

(SPEECH)
All right, let's see what you said. Oh, wow. So 97% of you said yes. 2% said, I don't know, and only 1% said no. I think we all know disinformation and misinformation is a pretty significant problem right now. And both types of information, disinformation, misinformation, present significant threats to our democracy. 

So national security experts have reported that foreign governments are using social media to generate distrust for our public institutions, including the judiciary. And these campaigns are often then shared and reshared by people who believe what they're seeing. And disinformation about the judicial system tends to center on themes that resonate with people who are already distrustful of government.

So these campaigns might begin with a kernel of truth, like a real case or a sentiment that many people share, a frustration, maybe, but then those campaigns can distort the facts to really fuel anger and polarization on both sides. And national security experts have stressed that it’s-- those campaigns are really intended to create discord without necessarily favoring one political agenda or another. It's designed to create chaos.

(DESCRIPTION)
A drawing of Lady Justice, who wears a blindfold and holds a sword and scales, is on the right. Text: Quote, Threats against the very individuals we have appointed or elected to administer our judicial system and the rule of law are not only wrong, they also threaten the very fabric of our democracy - judicial independence and the rule of law, end quote. Mary Smith, President, American Bar Association. 

(SPEECH)
Many people worry that disinformation and vitriol online has contributed to an increase in threats against judges. So I talked a little bit about this last week. The U.S. Marshals Service has documented a tremendous increase in serious and credible threats against judges. And since 2020, two state court judges have been killed, and one federal judge lost her son in a violent attack, all of which were perpetrated by former litigants. 

In response, Congress and several state legislatures have taken steps to try to improve security for judges and courts, but it's still a problem. I think we've seen some of this recently with threats against judges. So how can we counter these trends? I think there are two important steps we can take to protect ourselves against disinformation and misinformation and to become a savvy consumer of news about our courts.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Protect yourself against disinformation. Text: Follow diverse perspectives. This chart rates the political bias of media outlets: https:// ad font E.S. media.com/ interactive hyphen media hyphen bias hyphen chart slash. Be skeptical! Not everything you read is accurate and some websites specialize in false news. Fact-check before you share. Double-check stories against other sources or look it up on a fact-checking site like factcheck.org, snopes.com, politifact.org, or Duke's own reporters lab.org. Correct false information. See something, say something! Distinguish between opinion and false information. Respecting others' opinions and lived experiences is important. Model civil discourse. On the left is a chart with news channels and papers from hyperpartisan left to hyperpartisan right. 

(SPEECH)
So protecting yourself against disinformation, I think there are a few ways to do that. On the screen, you're seeing-- this is a website that rates political bias of major media outlets. And there are several sites like that. So I think one way we can protect ourselves is to try to follow a diverse group of people and perspectives. So look for credible sources of news that present perspectives that might be counter to your own. 

And you can use these kinds of tools. If you find the paper you read or the outlet you read is on one side, look for something credible that might present a balancing view. I think that can be really helpful. And be skeptical. So when you see stuff, there's a lot of stuff out there that's designed to encourage clicks and generate ad revenue. And many online outlets actually resort to misleading or sensationalized headlines to generate traffic.

So remember that not everything you read is accurate, and some websites specialize in false information. Fact-check before you share. So you can double-check stories against other sources, including traditional media, educational organizations or reputable fact-checking websites like Factcheck.org, snopes.com and politifact.org are some that I use.

And then when you see false information, say something. If you see that someone has posted a story you know is false, you can make a comment and say, that's not right. When possible, if you can link to a fact-checker or verifiable data, counter the false claim with information that shows that it's not right.

But be careful to distinguish between opinion and false information. The judges talked about this in the video. People are entitled to their opinions. And in the same way that we want people to hear us out, we should hear each other out and respect other people's opinions. But remember that one person's opinion or experience doesn't necessarily equal a trend or a broad truth, so countering false information with verifiable data is really important.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Be a savvy news consumer. On the right is a picture of a stack of newspapers. Text: Go to the source. Court websites publish written opinions. Look for legal media coverage when possible. SCOTUS blog.com for Supreme Court coverage. Law dot com for coverage of legal issues. Local newspapers for local court coverage. Try to take politics out of the story. Recognize your own bias and take steps to counter it. Consider the voices that aren't being heard. Remember that ethics codes prevent judges from speaking out. Remember there's more to the case than you see. Judges are constrained in their decision-making by law, rules, ethics, norms, precedent. Most cases are not black and white. 

(SPEECH)
So we can also become savvier news consumers. So now that you know a little bit more about the courts and the role of judges, I hope you can dig a little deeper behind headlines into the news that you see. There are a few specific steps. So you can go to the source. When you're reading about a case, you can look at a court website and in legal databases and access the actual opinion that the judge wrote. 

You can look for legal media coverage when possible. So there's traditional media, the big papers, but then there's also media that covers the law and the courts. So scotusblog.com and law.com are both focused on-- SCOTUSblog is focused on the Supreme Court. Law.com covers the legal industry and profession. And they can provide more detail and context than you might find in traditional media.

And where you can, try to take politics out of the story. So media coverage of cases often mentions which president or governor appointed a judge. And that suggests-- it plants a seed that the judge is a political actor. So I try to consider whether I would feel differently about a case or a story if I didn't know who appointed the judge or the political parties of the defendant or the claimant.

Remember that ethics codes often prevent judges from speaking out. So judges can't talk about the cases that are before them or that may come before them. And that means lawyers and pundits and advocates are often the ones providing explanations of what the courts are doing. But they also have their own agendas, so be mindful of that.

And look for deeper context wherever you can. Judges are constrained in their decision-making, like we talked about last week. They're constrained by law, by rules, by ethics, norms, precedents and more. So a sentence in a particular case might seem too light or too heavy until you learn more about the defendant's history and the circumstances of the crime and the laws and precedents and guidelines that related to the case.

And even then, we can disagree with a court's decision without making it personal against a judge.

(DESCRIPTION)
A painting of Louis D. Brandeis and a quote. Text: The most important political office is that of the private citizen. Louis D. Brandeis, Justice, U.S. Supreme Court. 

(SPEECH)
And people of good faith disagree, often vehemently, about how our government should work and what the law is and should be, the structure of our courts and how to balance judicial independence with accountability. But the rule of law and all that our courts do to uphold it is the foundation of our democracy and our way of life. 

Really, it underpins our economy, our ability to go to work, to go to school, to travel, to worship or not to worship, to voice our opinions and to elect our leaders. And the rule of law doesn't work without us. So Justice Louis Brandeis said, "The most important political office is that of the private citizen." So I think it's important for us to remember the way things are aren't the way they've always been or always will be. And the source of our government's authority is the Constitution. And the source of the Constitution's authority is we, the people.

It's our job to learn how government works and to engage in the democratic system, to support it, to improve it and to protect it. And our rights as citizens are intertwined with our responsibilities. We need to stay informed, to vote and engage in order to make sure we keep those rights.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: What would you ask a judge? Photos of judges are in the background. Logo: Civics Break. Text: Visit YouTube.com slash U.S. courts to hear these federal judges talk about their unique pathway to the bench. 

(SPEECH)
So that's the end of my presentation today. I want to encourage you all-- I know we have a few questions that we can go through, but as we finish up, I'm hoping you will use the Q&A to submit questions that you would pose to a judge. Next week, we will welcome Judge Paul Grimm, who is a retired federal judge, and Judge Allegra Collins, who is a current state court judge here in North Carolina. And we'll put your questions to them so that you can hear directly from the judges on some of the questions you have. 

(DESCRIPTION)
The slide presentation is replaced by a split screen of the speakers. 

(SPEECH)
Hi, Janice. 

JANICE BRUNNER: Hi. Thanks so much, Melinda. That was great. And I so look forward to next week's session with the judges. A few of the questions that we have that came in earlier, which I'll just-- some of them I think you've touched on, but the first one is, what are the pros and cons of having partisan judicial elections?

MELINDA VAUGHN: So judicial elections are a topic of a lot of scholarly debate in law schools and public policy think tanks and within the judiciary and in the public. I think the main argument that's made for judicial elections is that it creates some accountability to the people. So people can vote for or against judges, depending on whether they think that person will uphold their values in interpreting the law.

And when we say partisan elections, so some people might vote in nonpartisan elections, where you're voting for a judge, but you don't know what their party affiliation is. Some states have added the political party to the ballot. And I think some people view it as a shortcut for helping people identify candidates that might share their values.

The main argument against judicial elections is usually that it compromises judicial independence. Candidates have to run an election, and it involves raising money from donors and organizations. And that can create the appearance, if not the reality, of favoritism in judgments when someone becomes a judge.

And when judges have to run in partisan elections-- the state court judge can explain more of this, but in North Carolina, if you're a judicial candidate, you can only speak at events that your political party is hosting. So it cuts you off from a lot of the electorate. I think people generally think that partisan elections exacerbate that appearance of bias that judges really try to avoid.

There was a poll several years ago of judges. And asked about judicial elections, 63% of them preferred an appointment system for judicial selection for reasons of maintaining impartiality and even avoiding the appearance of bias. But there were some judges who said they preferred elections. They felt it, in some ways, protected judicial independence because candidates don't have to try to curry favor with politicians and other powerful people who would support their appointments.

And a couple judges said elections can produce more diversity on the bench. So one woman wrote that she was an African American woman and that she didn't think she would have had the opportunity to be appointed in a predominantly male political environment. So there are arguments both ways and variation depending sometimes on the level of the judge. So some scholars might say, an appellate court judge really should be appointed. A trial judge, maybe an election is fine.

I think there's not really a perfect model. I think it's important for us as voters to just always be informed and engaged, whatever the process is. And then I think it's important just to say-- every judge I've ever known will stress, regardless of the election process, once they become a judge, that's the job. There are new rules and responsibilities. And they strive for impartiality as a judge.

JANICE BRUNNER: That's good to hear. I think the oath is powerful and that they really try to do their best. They have to. If they don't, then we're all in trouble. So we have to rely on that. I've heard jury trials are less common than they used to be. Is that true? And if so, why? And what does that mean for the justice system if more cases are being settled rather than going to trial?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah. Yes, so jury trials, actually, have dramatically declined across the board, civil and criminal, federal and state, over several decades now. I think scholars would say that's due to several factors, the rise in arbitration. So a lot of companies require disputes to be arbitrated. There's an increasing cost of jury trials, which is really a deterrent to going to trial both for companies and for individuals. And that, I think, tends to motivate people to settle.

And then there's an increase in plea agreements in criminal trials, where defendants might be pressured or feel like they better take a plea for a lesser charge rather than risk conviction in a trial. The other challenge there, I think, is that the number of cases that are filed keeps growing. And we talked about the number of judges has been static, particularly in federal courts. So the courts are really overwhelmed. There's a backlog. And just the time it takes to get to a trial might also be a reason that people settle.

I will say, most legal experts, I think, think that those trends are bad. An American Bar Association study found a few years ago that lawyers and judges broadly agreed that while jury trials are less predictable, slower and more expensive, they're fairer. I think by large margins, people in the legal profession believe that jury trials are worth the costs associated with them. And public opinion generally seems to reinforce that point, too.

So I think there are some concerns that diminishing juror involvement also has contributed, in some ways, to this decrease in public faith in the system. I mentioned earlier, if you've been on a jury, you tend to have a more positive view of the way the system works. You've seen it. You've seen people trying their best to do the right thing.

Fewer of us are having those opportunities. Fewer of us have seen the system in action. And I think that might be a problem in general for the system. So again, if you get a jury summons, go do it. It's really worth the time that you need to put in. I found it to be really inspiring.

JANICE BRUNNER: That's a great point. So very important to participate and be part of the system that we're so fortunate to have. The next question-- I'm curious to see what you will say. I think you might have touched on some of the answers in your discussion-- is, if judges are supposed to be neutral, why does the Supreme Court seem so political?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah, I think that's a common question. So one of the challenges with talking about the judiciary in general is that people always think about the Supreme Court. That's what we hear about in the media. It's what people talk about. But media coverage of the Supreme Court almost always focuses on the political dimensions of the cases that the court hears.

And the reality of this way the system is designed is that by the time a case gets to the Supreme Court, it's there because it's very controversial. These are cases where lower courts have disagreed on how to interpret or apply the law, or there are competing ways of interpreting what the Constitution says. These are cases that are already highly politicized and contentious because of their implications for society.

So they're tasked with a political job of making decisions in politicized cases, really controversial cases. And the Supreme Court has to make a decision. They have to do something with these cases. We have an adversarial system, so there are always winners and losers, and someone is always going to be upset or not happy with a court's decision.

And I think there's another issue where there's a general trend in which things that used to be discussed as judicial philosophies, or there were ways, methods that judges might use to interpret the Constitution or the law. Those have, over time, become conflated with political ideologies. So when we talk about judicial discretion, this idea that judges have a lot of latitude to interpret the law in a way that makes sense to them and to the case and the facts at hand, some of those interpretive approaches have aligned with political ideas.

I do want to say that sometimes those alignments are not what we think, right? In a previous program, I asked the group how many of the previous Supreme Court terms cases they thought were decided along party lines. So in 2024, that term, how many of the cases did the court decide that were just along party lines? And several people said, 100%, all of them, super political. And the reality is it was 15%, so 1-5.

Eighty-five percent of the cases that the Supreme Court heard in the '23-'24 term were either decided unanimously or with surprising groupings of justices, where it didn't align with what you would expect of political ideology. So I think that shows, too, the number of political cases even is pretty small. Supreme Court only hears 75 to 80 cases a year. In 2024, there were 630,000 cases in the federal court. So it's a tiny number of the full federal system, and that is a fraction when compared to the state courts.

So again, I think we get a little bit of a distorted view when we focus on the Supreme Court, which is, of course, taking the controversial political cases. And in some ways, that, I think, has to be considered separately from the way the rest of the judicial system functions.

JANICE BRUNNER: That's important. Those are powerful figures that I think a lot of-- it’s very by the numbers, you can't really dispute. And those are important things to know. The next question is, when the Supreme Court decides a case in a way that a majority of the country disagrees with, what can be done to change that decision?

MELINDA VAUGHN: So we've talked a little bit about some of these things. I think everyone, if you took a civics class in high school, you know that the Supreme Court has made some bad decisions in our history. Some of those have been overturned by amendments to the Constitution. Some have been overturned by later Supreme Court cases.

If the court finds a law to be unconstitutional, the legislative and executive branches can rework a law to address the constitutional concerns. And people can vote for representatives who will do that. In some cases, states can pass their own constitutional amendments to protect rights that the Supreme Court has deemed not protected by the U.S. Constitution.

So a state can pass law-- no state can pass a law that diminishes a right that is guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution. But states can pass laws that extend rights. So an example would be Montana and Hawaii and maybe some others guarantee the right to a clean and healthful environment for citizens of their states. So that's not in the U.S. Constitution. That's the extension of rights to citizens of Montana and Hawaii.

Some states have passed similar laws or laws that more proactively protect privacy in ways that the U.S. Constitution doesn't. So there are mechanisms built into the democracy-- the democratic system for citizens to change laws, for legislative and executive branches to change laws. They take a while. It's often not an immediate process.

But I think it's important that we all remember that court rulings maintain the rule of law and a certain order in our country. Ignoring those rulings is not really a viable solution because it can undermine the authority of the courts in all of those other areas where we have hundreds of thousands of cases, where we all have a vested interest in the courts' decisions being upheld, I mean, contracts and civil rights and privacy issues that the courts decide for us. So I think we have to recognize that there are processes. They might take some time, but they're built into the system.

JANICE BRUNNER: Good to know. This next question is a big one. I don't know how much time we have left to answer it, but you probably have a very succinct way of doing so. It says, what are some of the main differences between our country's judicial system and other countries' systems? And are there things that other countries do differently that we can learn from?

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yeah, there are several unique features of our court system compared to others around the world. So I'll just talk about a few. I mentioned in-- I can’t remember if it’s the first session or the second session that our system is based on a common law tradition, which comes from England. That's the basis for most justice systems that are in countries that were colonized by Great Britain.

Other countries use what's called a civil law system instead. So the main difference revolves around how each system crafts and carries out its laws. So in a civil law system, the lawmakers of the country make the law, devise legal codes that are then adhered to. And in a common law system, the rules develop over time with precedent and case law. So we talked a little bit about that.

Common law countries use the adversarial system, with the parties presenting their cases in front of the neutral fact finder, the judge or the jury. And the lawyers and the parties are then responsible for gathering the evidence and making the arguments. In a civil law country, they usually use the inquisitorial system, where the judge is more hands-on in investigating cases to uncover the truth. So a judge might be gathering evidence, questioning witnesses, and doing things that lawyers would do here.

The United States is one of few countries that allows jury trials for both criminal and civil cases. There are a number of other countries that have jury trials in criminal but not civil cases. And in some countries, only judges hear cases without a jury. Almost every other country limits the term of justices at the high court or has an age limit.

Most other countries-- many other countries do not have judicial reviews, so a court that can review the constitutionality of laws. Yeah, so there are several. I could keep going. I want to share one really-- I think this is a fun story. I met a justice from the Constitutional Court of Ecuador a couple of years ago. And that's the high court in Ecuador that only hears matters that arise under their constitution.

And their court has nine justices that are appointed by a judicial council with a really public and transparent process, where anyone can nominate a candidate. And then this is what's just so funny to me. So nine justices are appointed. And then every three years, they fire three justices. And they do it by lottery.

So she was telling me they have a night. Everyone tunes in on TV. And they have a bowl or whatever. And they draw three justices' names out, and they're out of a job, and then they appoint three more behind them. So she said, it's really stressful for the judges because every three years, they got to prepare all their cases to hand over. They don't know if they'll have a job the next day. But she also liked that it was just really transparent and fair and, I guess, made for really good TV. [CHUCKLES] So, yeah, there's a lot of different ways to approach judicial systems and appointments that I don't know what we learned from. But it's interesting, I think, to see the variety.

So the last thing I just wanted to say, there had been a question about civics in schools. And so I wanted to just share a few things with you both as parents, as adults, and people interested in more civics opportunities. There are tons of resources out there. I wanted to mention icivics.org, which is a great organization founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. They have a lot of civics games that kids can play. They have age-appropriate things and a lot of really great content for adults. So if this is content that you're interested in learning more about, I think icivics.org is a really great place to go.

The National Constitution Center is a really good resource online. And they have more-- well, they have stuff for school-aged kids, but also adults as well, and a really terrific podcast. And then there's a podcast called Civics 101 that I listen to that has both a set of fundamental civics primers, and then they publish a podcast every week on a topic in the news. And I find both of those to be really, really good and helpful resources for learning more on any of these issues that you're interested in.

JANICE BRUNNER: Well, that's one of my favorite topics, as you know, so thank you for covering that. And thank you for being here with us today. As usual, this was amazing and so helpful. And we're so looking forward to next week when the judges will join us.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: What would you ask a judge? Photos of judges are in the background. Logo: Civics Break. Text: Visit YouTube.com slash U.S. courts to hear these federal judges talk about their unique pathway to the bench. 

(SPEECH)
So, I hope that everyone who's made it this far with us will continue to log in next week. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute. A Series on Civic Engagement. Text: Take Our Survey: Link in chat. Watch Replays: travelersinstitute.org. Visit Bolch to Learn More: On the right is a QR code. 

(SPEECH)
I think we’ll have-- any questions that we haven't been able to get to in the chat we, hopefully, will speak about next week with the judges. And thanks again, Melinda. 

MELINDA VAUGHN: Yes, thank you. I'll see you all next week. 

[SMOOTH MUSIC] 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute. A Series on Civic Engagement. 

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Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute, A Series on Civic Engagement. The next slide says, Civics Break: A Course on the Judiciary with Duke Law. Panel Q and A with Judges. Logos: Citizen Travelers (service mark), Bolch Judicial Institute, Duke Law, Civics Break. A woman in red glasses speaks from a video call tile in the upper right. Her tile is labeled, Janice Brunner. 

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JANICE BRUNNER: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. I'm Janice Brunner, Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement for Travelers. And I'm happy to welcome you this afternoon to our special Citizen Travelers at the Travelers Institute program with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law. 

Citizen Travelers is our aggressively nonpartisan initiative to empower Travelers employees to take part in the civic life of their communities while building leadership and professional skills. Our democracy depends on informed and engaged citizens. When people understand how our democracy works, they are better equipped to engage in civil dialogue, take constructive action and invest in their communities, all of which is good for business.

It's with this in mind that we are pleased to host a series of programs on the judiciary with the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. This final course in our series of four will dive into the day-to-day work of a judge and explore the topics reviewed in previous sessions more deeply by allowing you an opportunity to hear directly from the judges themselves.

Before we begin, I'd like to share a disclaimer about today's program.

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Text: About Today's Webinar. This webinar is supported by Citizen Travelers, the civic engagement initiative of The Travelers Indemnity Co., for informational and educational purposes only. 

The non-partisan views expressed by the speakers and/or the Bolch Judicial Institute and its employees are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Travelers or any of its employees. 

Travelers disclaims responsibility for any publication or statement by any of the speakers and/or Bolch Judicial Institute. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate.

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I'd also like to invite you to submit questions now and throughout the program. Drop your questions in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. With that, I'm thrilled to be joined today by our amazing guests. 

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The four speakers smile in headshots above their names and titles. In her photo, Janice Brunner has shoulder-length blonde hair and wears a dark blazer. Text: Janice Brunner, Group General Counsel and Head of Civic Engagement, Travelers. In her photo, Melinda Vaughn has neck-length, light reddish hair and wears an orange blazer. Text: Melinda Vaughn, Deputy Director, Bolch Judicial Institute. In his photo, Paul Grimm is bald and wears a dark suit with a green bowtie. Text: Paul Grimm, Former Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. In her photo, Allegra Collins has shoulder-length blonde hair and wears a pink top. Text: Allegra Collins, Judge, North Carolina Court of Appeals. 

(SPEECH)
Melinda Vaughn is the Deputy Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Melinda oversees the development and implementation of educational programs, conferences, events, communications and multimedia projects designed to support and strengthen the judiciary and to improve public understanding of the rule of law and the role of the judicial branch. She is also Managing Editor of Judicature, a scholarly journal about judging produced by the Institute for federal and state judges. 

We are also thrilled to have retired Judge Paul Grimm with us today. Paul Grimm is the David F. Levi Professor of the Practice of Law and the Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. Prior to his retirement in 2022, Judge Grimm served as a district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. From 1997 to 2012, he was a magistrate judge in the same court, serving as Chief Magistrate Judge from 2006 through 2012. He earned his law degree from the University of New Mexico and a master of judicial studies from Duke University. Judge Grimm served both on active duty and in the Army Reserve as a Judge Advocate General’s Corps officer, and retired in the rank of lieutenant colonel.

We are also privileged to have with us today Judge Allegra Collins. Judge Collins sits on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. She was elected in a statewide election to an eight-year term beginning in 2019. Before that, she was a full-time faculty member at Campbell Law School and an appellate lawyer who represented clients before the North Carolina Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and the U.S. Supreme Court. She is a 2023 graduate of Duke Law School's Master of Judicial Studies program.

Judge Collins is also a former world-class athlete. She represented the United States in two Pan American Games as a member of the women's handball team. She played team handball professionally in Europe and was a member of the United States National Team. Prior to her team handball career, Judge Collins was a world-ranked tennis player.

Thank you so much for being here with us today. With that introduction, I'd love to turn it over to Melinda, who will lead us through today's discussion.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Thank you, Janice.

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Melinda appears in the video call tile. Text: Civics Break, presented by the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law School. Logos: Duke Law, Bolch Judicial Institute. 

(SPEECH)
It's great to be back for our fourth session. I really appreciate everybody being here and being here through these several sessions that we've done. As Janice said, today is the fourth in the Civics Break program, and we're going to talk with judges directly. 

So, these are two judges that I've worked with very closely. Judge Grimm is my boss, so I am on my best behavior today. And Judge Collins, of course, has been a student in our master's program. She's also on the faculty at the law school. So they're both really terrific people. Thank you both for being here today. We really appreciate it.

You have both also seen the scripts and the content of the courses that we've walked through. So you know we've talked about the constitutional foundations of the judicial branch, what the rule of law is, what some of the things involved with the role and job of being a judge and judicial discretion and judicial decision-making. And then we talked last week about how citizens can get involved in the judicial branch.

We've also talked about the codes of conduct and ethical guidelines that may restrict some of what you can say today. So we know that any case that might come before you, you're not going to talk about-- at least Judge Collins, who's still an active judge. So as your discretion leads you to respond to these questions, we understand that there may be some things that you may not want to address.

But over the course of the first three weeks, we've had several questions come in that I didn't want to answer or that I tried to answer, and you will do a better job of answering. So I'm going to walk through some of those questions today. And I wondered if, before we get started, if you could each just take two minutes to talk about how you became a judge.

We know for Judge Grimm, a federal judge, it was a nomination by the president. For Judge Collins, it was an election, which is a very different process. So maybe we could start with you, Judge Collins, and talk about how you became a judge.

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The slide disappears, and the four speakers' video call tiles form a 2 by 2 grid, with Judge Grimm at the top left, Janice Brunner at the top right, Melinda Vaughn at the bottom left, and Judge Collins at the bottom right. 

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ALLEGRA COLLINS: Sure. Thank you all for having me. It's really a pleasure to be here. I've been a judge on the Court of Appeals since 2018. Well, I guess January 1, 2019. I'm in my seventh year. In North Carolina, our judges are elected. So trial court judges are elected in districts. And appellate court judges like myself are elected statewide.

So we've got 100 counties. That means that we have to run in 100 counties. They are now political races that are partisan, which means that your political affiliation is on the ballot. We do have to raise money. And so we do have to call people and ask for money or hold fundraisers. And generally, the process for being elected, the campaign may stretch as long as two years or more. So lots of campaigning, going around to various groups, various people, getting campaign donations.

And ultimately, sometimes we have partisan primaries and sometimes we don't, depending on how the legislature runs that particular year. In my year, we didn't have a partisan primary. But we just had a general. So it's a long process. And it's tiring. It's very different from what we do on the bench, which is not-- not see a whole lot of people and do a lot of reading and writing.

So that was how I was elected. And I have an eight-year term. So I would be on the ballot if I were to run next year.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Thank you. Judge Grimm.

PAUL GRIMM: Well, it's great to be here with you all today. I became a magistrate judge in 1997. I was appointed by the judges of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. By statute, there is a Merit Selection Committee that has to be made up of members of the Bar and at least one or more civilian member who is not a lawyer or a judge. And they make a recommendation to the court. And the court then picks the magistrate judges. They serve for eight-year terms and are eligible for renewal thereafter.

When I became a district judge, I was nominated by the president of the United States. And I went through the confirmation process where I had a Senate hearing. And the Senate Judiciary Committee approved me for consideration for a floor vote. And it went before a vote. And I was confirmed by a vote of 93 to 1.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Those were the days, right?

PAUL GRIMM: Yeah, those were the days.

MELINDA VAUGHN: And I should mention we talked just very briefly. I think I mentioned magistrate judges. But that's a different role than the nominated Article III judges in the federal branch. So there's a lot more we could talk about, about the job of magistrate judges, that we didn't get into.

But I next want to ask a little bit about being a judge right now. We talked about the constraints on judges, on your decision-making, and looking at law, the ethics rules, just the emotional weight of making decisions about people's lives. We also talked about some of the current challenges, case backlogs that are plaguing a lot of courts, especially since the pandemic, and an increase in threats against judges, which has been notable recently, but I think is a trend that has gone on for about a decade now.

One person commented that they would be afraid if their son or daughter wanted to become a judge. And so I wanted to pose the question to you. Why did you want to become a judge? Why would someone want to become a judge? And do you worry about good people being deterred from becoming a judge by some of these challenges? Maybe start with you, Judge Grimm.

PAUL GRIMM: Sure. Well, I think that I became a judge-- and I think a lot of the other people that I know became a judge-- because of a commitment to our legal system, in that our system is designed to allow members of our country who believe that they have suffered an injury to go into a court where there will be a judge who will be fair and impartial, who will have done their work and be prepared, trials that will be presided over by members of the community who serve on juries.

And to me, it seemed the highest calling that any lawyer who was a trial lawyer could aspire to is to serve the public by taking this role. And there are many reasons why some people might not do it. The pay is not as rewarding as people who are in private practice. And they’re long hours. Most of the judges that I know work six or seven days a week with great caseloads.

But we do it because of a belief in our judicial system, that it was designed by our people to deal with abuses that we had suffered as colonies of Great Britain, to have protections that made us unique, to promote the rule of law. And the rule of law is essential because every privilege and every right that we treasure as Americans is protected by the rule of law, that we are a nation of laws and not individual people, and that no government branch-- no person, no corporation-- is above the law.

The laws are passed by democratically elected representatives who speak for the people. And it seemed to me that a system like that, that was designed to achieve justice in this way, and to work with members of the public who appear in court, to treat them with dignity and with respect, so that they felt that even if they did not win a case, that they had been heard and treated fairly, was the highest calling that I could aspire to.

And yes, there are people who disagree with your decisions. There are threats. There are angry phone calls and voice messages that are sent. Sometimes the threats go beyond that. But I think that the men and women who become judges do that out of a sense of dedication.

And I certainly understand why any parent might be concerned for their son or daughter if they wanted to be a judge. I hope that they would be immensely proud of them for wanting to fulfill this service, because that, I think, is one of the unique aspects of our country, is the strength of our justice system and its availability to all members of the public.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Judge Collins.

ALLEGRA COLLINS: Sure. I can add to that. Just first, an explanation that Judge Grimm and I do different types of judging. Judge Grimm was on the trial court where you have evidence and juries in the courtroom. You have cross-examination and asking questions to witnesses and those types of things. And I sit on an appellate court, which simply looks at the trial transcript, everything that came up from the trial and briefs that attorneys write, and look at errors of law.

And we do not have much in-court time. It's similar to the United States Supreme Court, although we have fewer what's called oral arguments in our cases, where the attorneys come in and argue to us orally. We do most of our judging based on documents, briefs that are submitted to us. And we read those briefs. And we issue written opinions which are analyses of certain legal issues. So our jobs are very much behind-the-scenes, behind closed doors, lots of reading and lots of writing.

So the reason I wanted to become a judge was because I was a clerk out of law school. And I was a clerk to a judge who sits-- who sat on the court that I sit on now. So I got to see firsthand her part in the process. And it was so important to have someone who was hardworking and dedicated and just determined to get the law right, because we have so many people we're writing for. We're writing for the parties, first and foremost. We're writing for the judges on the trial courts so that we can clarify the law. We're writing for law students who are trying to learn the law. We're writing for the public who is trying to understand the law.

So I felt like my interest and skills that I gained through clerking and through my practice and really trying to be the best legal writer and analyst that I possibly could fit in the system well, because I think it's really important that we remember that just a few cases get all of the public attention. And we have hundreds and thousands of cases that might be procedural, that might be merits-based, but have nothing to do with any kind of politics or anything that's controversial. You simply have parties who need their cases decided.

So I felt like my skills fit that well. And I really enjoy legal research and writing. As I said, it can be isolating. So some reasons why some people might not want to run is because, No. 1, the campaign is hard, at least in North Carolina on the state court. And No. 2, it is isolating. But it is immensely gratifying. And while there may be some, I guess, some danger in doing it, there might be some danger in doing all types of jobs. So it's really an honor to be where I am in the judicial system. And as Judge Grimm said, it's really the highest calling, in my opinion, that a lawyer can have.

MELINDA VAUGHN: All right. Thank you. A little bit farther along some of those lines, I mean, we had talked about-- in our course, we talked about the oath that judges take, which varies a little bit for federal and state courts. But generally, judges take an oath to administer justice without respect to persons, to do equal right to rich and poor and to impartially discharge their duties under the Constitution, the state constitution, the federal Constitution.

But in practice, that seems hard. So there were several questions around how judges set aside their personal bias to become impartial. I think particularly, Judge Collins, for a state court judge who's run an election before becoming a judge, how do you set aside your bias? How do you set aside the person who went around asking for money from donors, which are often lawyers and companies in the state that you're sitting in? How do you become impartial after something like that? And so why don't we start with you, Judge Collins? And then I know Judge Grimm has thoughts on that, too.

ALLEGRA COLLINS: Sure. So when I ran, I ran on a platform of writing fair, impartial, thorough, accurate, well-reasoned decisions, which is not a partisan message. And it benefits everybody. So although I had to run in a political system that does require you to speak to political groups to put your political affiliation on the ballot, I, like many of my colleagues, don't run a partisan-messaged campaign.

We do ask for money, but we ask for money from all types of people. Anybody willing to donate is welcome. And we speak to all kinds of groups, regardless of political affiliation. So I would say that even though it is cast as a political race, so much of it is not. So much of it is just speaking to lawyers across the board who are the ones that generally tend to be more interested in the candidates.

And it also was really very much the reason that I wanted to be a judge, was the legal research and writing. And I'm specifically interested in procedure, appellate procedure, civil procedure, which oftentimes is completely apolitical. So I didn't find it difficult. I don't know that my colleagues on my bench-- we've got 15 of us-- that many of us find it difficult to go out and ask people to vote for you because you're going to be fair and impartial and thorough and accurate.

And so it is, I think, very important that we try to give the appearance of impartiality also for the public. So it's difficult when they understand you're running publicly as a partisan candidate. But I think our message is that we are all part of the justice system, and that we wear a black robe, and our job is to be fair and impartial.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Judge Grimm, your thoughts?

PAUL GRIMM: Sure. Well, in the federal system, the judges do not run for election, so that they are not seeking money to run campaigns, which state court judges must do as a means of getting elected to the position. But it does have a political origin because the president, who is a politician, elected the head of a party, does nominate. And then, of course, the Senate, which is made up of politicians from both Democratic and Republican and Independent parties, have to confirm.

So there's a saying that the appointment of judges involves political activity, but the act of judging does not. And I think that the overwhelming majority of judges believe the same thing. As Judge Collins correctly pointed out, the overwhelming majority of the cases that we get are not the cases that you see in the headlines. There's a person who says that they were injured by someone else, and the question is whether they were injured and, if so, what are the damages that came from that injury?

There are people who say that they had a contract and that the other side didn't comply with the terms of the contract, or that they sued to say that they were fired or not hired because of their national origin, or their gender, or their age, or their disability. And they're asking for a resolution of those cases. And the law and the facts are developed by the trial courts. And a ruling is made. And if someone disagrees with that, it goes up on appeal.

So judges very infrequently are called upon to make decisions that involve politics. In fact, in the federal court, there's a very strong doctrine that political questions are not answered by the courts. The courts have to have what's known as a case or controversy. And what that means is you've got to have real people or organizations that claim that the person that they sued did something wrong, violated the Constitution or a statute passed by the legislature, and that they've been injured.

And so you start with the context of real people with nonpolitical questions. They're just saying, did this conduct of the person or the organization I sued, did it constitute something that was legitimate or not? And if so, how was I injured? So the process itself of deciding the facts and applying the law is nonpolitical.

Now, because of the nature of our society, some of the most important issues that you hear about on the news will find their way into court cases. And judges have to decide those. It's not like they're engaging in going out and trying to weigh in on an issue that is a political issue. But they are deciding a case that's been assigned to them. And they don't have the choice to ignore it. The Congress can decide not to pass a law on a certain topic. The state legislature can do the same. But when a judge gets a case, the judge has to decide that case.

Moreover, judges have to show their work. They don't just sort of come in and have a crystal ball or a magic wand and say-- it's not like a fortune cookie, that you open it up and you say, here's my ruling. They have to go through a process. And even trial court judges have to explain the basis of their ruling. And for a trial court judge like I was, then there's an appellate court judge like Judge Collins that's looking over what I did to see if it was right or wrong, and then above the appellate courts are, of course, supreme courts, the courts that make the final decision. So there are protections built in at every level.

Moreover, the ethical rules that apply to judges say that if they're not unbiased, they have to recuse themselves. If they know that they have a reason why they can't be completely fair and impartial to both parties, or even if they felt subjectively that they could be impartial, if the public looking at that could reasonably doubt that they were, then under those circumstances, they're obligated to recuse themselves.

And if a party believes that the judge assigned to their case does have a conflict and should not be on that, then they can ask the judge to recuse himself or herself. And if the judge chooses not to do that, then that is another decision by a judge that can be reviewed by an appellate court. So there are safeguards built in.

Now, the Supreme Court, of course, gets only the toughest cases in the country, the ones that are the most challenging and difficult. They only take 50 to 60 cases a year. And so they're going to be the ones that are really the most significant cases that affect lots of things that impact us as a people. But those are the very, very small minority of the cases that get to that level and are decided by that level. And those are the ones, of course, that get the most attention, because they're the most significant. They're the closest in how they could come out.

But I would say 99% of all of what happens in the courts is just individual cases involving individual people, organizations or government entities with judges who have a very strict framework as to how they can develop the facts and apply the law, must show what they did so that if someone disagrees, it can be appealed, and have ethical obligations to make sure that in their own heart, they believe that they are objective and not subjective, and can be fair and impartial, and understand that if someone could reasonably disagree with that, they have a duty to decide whether or not they should recuse themselves from hearing the case.

MELINDA VAUGHN: But I think ethical-- the codes of conduct and ethical guidelines are tricky. I mean, there's talk all the time about these codes don't have teeth. And I've tried to look things up in some of the codes. And there's so much detail. There's so many-- there's comments. There's all sorts of layers of things to know.

So I'm curious to hear from each of you just how you personally have engaged with the ethical guidelines that apply to your court. How do you weigh something like recusal? Have you had to recuse? And what do you say to people who are concerned that these guidelines and the codes just have no teeth? So maybe Judge Grimm, if you want to continue. And then we'll go to Judge Collins.

PAUL GRIMM: Sure. So in the federal system, let me say that the guide-- that the ethics codes do have teeth for the trial judges and the courts judges and the courts of appeal. And there are enforcement bodies there. Individuals can bring a complaint against a judge and say, I think this judge did something that was wrong. I don't think there's a federal judge on the bench that hasn't had a complaint or two filed against them. I certainly did. None of them were found valid. And so there is a process right there.

There are codes of conduct that are mandatory. There's an entire committee on the courts that will give case examples, hypothetical examples, and answer questions to give judges guidance. And if there's a complaint against a judge at the trial court level where I was, it goes to the chief judge of the appellate court that sits above us. And that judge investigates, has a staff that investigates. And if they believe that there was a basis for thinking that there might have been a problem, the judge is asked to give their response.

And that can result in a private disciplinary action, a reprimand, a private reprimand, a public reprimand. It could be a decision that goes as far as to recommend that further action be taken by Congress in an impeachment provision. So there clearly are teeth there.

And the Supreme Court, while it is different because the Supreme Court is established by Article III of the United States Constitution that establishes a Supreme Court, and it is the highest court of the land and ultimately decides. So there's no higher body than the Supreme Court. But recently, because they were concerned that the public know that they acknowledge that they have a responsibility to comply with ethical rules, adopted their own code of conduct. And of course, because they are higher level than all of the other courts that administer the code of conducts, it is, for them, enforced by the court itself.

But there certainly are teeth in the process. And I will tell you that everyone in that process takes them very seriously when there are complaints. And that complaint may go as far as, this judge didn't recuse himself, to, the judge is not polite and courteous to people. And they're taken seriously. And there have been instances in which judges have acknowledged they did something wrong and said, I need to change, and made themselves available for review to make sure that they could do that. So I think that process is in there.

I would say that the number of judges for whom there are justified complaints for ethical violations is minuscule. And there are about just short of 700 federal district judges. And I think that there are not more than a handful of cases that you hear about in any one year that say that there's some conduct which is really improper.

Now mind you, as a judge, you're in the process of ruling against people and for people. So people who get ruled against may not like what happened. And they may say that, well, we think that the judge wasn't fair. But there has to be a basis for that. The judge, if there is a recusal motion, has to explain why they did or did not recuse. And that's subject to review. So there are teeth. There are protections.

And I know that most judges are extremely careful because they know that the requirement is not that they just comply with ethics, but there not be any appearance of impropriety. And so that means that they have to behave above and beyond. They can't just strictly fit-- I'm going to push this to the limits, but no farther. That's not enough. They have to make sure that they behave in a way that there is no appearance of impropriety.

ALLEGRA COLLINS: Our system is very similar in North Carolina. We have a Code of Judicial Conduct. And that applies to all levels of judges in our state. It is very detailed. And we have a Judicial Standards Commission that looks into any complaints that are filed against judges. The commission is really an excellent source for us as judges to ask for opinions on certain issues, to get advisory opinions, to ask-- obviously, we all run for our seats.

And so you might imagine there might be some conflicts with donors who may come before us, or maybe a party was at some sort of event. So those types of things, we have to be very, very clear about when we recuse, when we don't. What is a conflict? What isn't? And Judicial Standards is very helpful to us in helping us understand, ultimately, what the boundaries are for us and what we should do, both ethically and just public facing.

So they do also look into all of the various complaints that are filed. And as Judge Grimm said, parties are often disgruntled and do file those complaints as well. So ultimately, a majority of the complaints that are filed don't go any further than filing. But some do. And the Judicial Standards Commission will investigate. And it does have teeth. We have had judges who've been disciplined, both privately and publicly. So I think that it's a system that works. And I think the judges are very mindful of it.

And we're certainly mindful of it when we're balancing our duties as a campaign-- on the campaign and as a judge, because sometimes those things can conflict. So we do have certain specific rules. Various donors or, for example, former clerks can't come before you for six months. But there are other rules that are not as delineated.

And then we get some guidance. So it is helpful to have those rules on paper. It is helpful to have that guidance, especially because now judges sometimes are in the position of judging colleagues on cases before us that have colleagues. And so everybody has some sort of contact with that colleague or former colleague. So Judicial Standards has been very proactive in trying to help judges understand where those lines of impropriety are.

MELINDA VAUGHN: I think that's comforting. It's good to hear. And I think it's important for us to remember that we don't always see the full story and get the full background in a report in the newspaper or something like that when there are issues or challenges.

ALLEGRA COLLINS: Yeah. I think that's a great thing to remember, too, is that reports are snippets of things. And so much goes on behind the scenes, whether it's cases or simply judges trying to figure out who can sit on the cases. There's a lot there.

MELINDA VAUGHN: So, we talked in the course about the constitutional design of the three branches of government and the separation of powers, the role of the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches. We talked about the power of judicial review.

And several questions have come up around the power of the judiciary, or what power judges have to make sure a ruling is enforced. What are the limits of your power? And what can you do to ensure that a ruling is enforced? And what happens if a ruling is ignored at the state or the federal level? And I don't know if you've had experience with that, but your thoughts on the powers of the judicial branch and the limits of those powers, I think, would be helpful for people. So maybe we start with Judge Grimm.

PAUL GRIMM: Sure. What you have to keep in mind is that judges issue orders and rulings in individual cases. And when a party is ruled against by a court, then one of the ways in which a party that disagrees with that can have that reexamined is by taking an appeal.

Now, if the judge at a trial level issues an order prior to the final entry of a judgment-- so let's say the judge issues an order that doesn't allow a party to pursue a certain aspect of a claim, dismisses it or issues a ruling that, during a civil case, the discovery, the exchange of information that occurs so the parties have the information to be able to try the case, is ordered to be given or not given, or issues a judgment where they ordered that certain activity be done, if the person-- if the case continues to be with the federal court-- if it goes up on appeal, then the federal trial court lacks jurisdiction in any further jurisdiction until the appeal has been resolved.

But if it's still within the four corners of what the judge has, before a final judgment is issued, if a party does not comply, then the judge can resort to two powers, which are called contempt powers. There is civil contempt and there is criminal contempt. Criminal contempt is limited to circumstances where people appearing directly before that judge have done something that's contemptuous of the judicial proceedings of the power of the judge. And that can include a finding of contempt and the imposition of a period of imprisonment. It doesn't happen very often. But it is a power that the court has over the individual parties who appear before that court.

The civil contempt is different. Civil contempt is designed to persuade, coerce a party to do that which they were ordered to do. So if, for example, you ordered that someone produce some information to the other side to be used to gather the information before the case goes to trial, and they refuse to do that, and they do refuse for an unjustified reason, then the court can say that I'm going to impose a monetary fine of X number of dollars a day, and it will continue every single day until it's paid.

For monetary fines that the court could-- can impose then, as a consequence of that, the rules require the judge to take into consideration the ability of a party to pay. So if somebody makes $50,000 a year and that's their entire salary, and you find them in contempt and you fine them $50,000 a day, then that's excessive. It just needs to be something that will persuade them to do what the court has ordered them to do.

The different issue is, is what happens if the case goes to an appellate court, and the appellate court issues a final order, or it goes to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court issues a final order. At that point, the law, the tradition has always been, for good reason, that the parties will comply with that once the final decision has been made in that case. They will comply with it.

And if they fail to do so, then not only do you have these contempt powers that can be put into effect, but also, there are strong mores, strong customs in our country that have existed for our entire history, that you do comply with a court order even if you don't agree with it, because that's what the rule of law says, is that when the final level of authority has decided, that you comply with it. And the reason for that is, is that once you start disobeying final orders of a court, then no right or any other privilege that we have is safe.

So if I have a contract I want enforced, if I have a intellectual property that I created and I want to protect against someone stealing it, if I have a patent that I have that someone else infringes on, if I have an injury that I have suffered, and I want someone ordered to pay, the minute you start disregarding court orders in one type of case, and they can be disregarded in another type of case. And the rule of law, which supports all of what it is that we find important, would unravel.

And so really, there are consequences that the court has that it can do, powers that it has. And then there are just norms and traditions that have been with us from the beginning of our country and have worked well for us and have made us the great country that we are today. And if you fail to comply with one particular aspect of that, which is the device by which we resolve our disputes among ourselves, is what the court system does, then that all unravels. And the exceptionalism that has defined what we are as a people and that has united us and brought us together even when we disagree with each other, would unravel.

And so there are consequences that are sort of specifically focused to the court system itself and broader public considerations that have-- that make it dangerous and unwise to refuse to comply with the court orders.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Judge Collins, do you want to add to that?

ALLEGRA COLLINS: Yes, I can add to that. As the judicial branch, our power is with the pen. That is where our orders and our judgments and our analysis comes from. We don't control money. We don't control the armed forces. We can simply control what we say.

And so oftentimes at the trial courts-- my husband is also a trial court judge. And he relies on law enforcement agents to enforce some of the orders that he issues if parties aren't going to comply. Judge Grimm talked about the contempt powers, the civil and criminal contempt. Those are certainly available to the courts and to judges.

If you disagree with a decision, you can appeal it in many, but not all, cases. And obviously, when you get to the top court of either the state or the land, that is your last resort. There is no more appeal. And if parties don't wish to comply, we don't have anything physical to require that. And so, as Judge Grimm said, it is norms. It is what this country has done for hundreds of years to comply by it, whether it's a parent in a custody proceeding or a party in a contract dispute. All of those things have required compliance with the norms of what we've got.

So it is unsettling to think of what could happen if parties do start disregarding orders, at least from our perspective, because we don't have other control, other than what we've had for the past hundreds of years. So that's what I would say about that, is that our power's with the pen.

MELINDA VAUGHN: I think it's a little bit-- one of the reasons we've put this course together is just to help people see the benefits that we all have from a functioning judicial system. And when we-- we're not always going to like the outcome of a particular case. People will win. People will lose. But because of that system, we have a process for deciding disputes that is peaceful, that works for us as a population, as a country. And ideally, we keep it working so that it can work for us, even when it means we might have to abide by a decision or an outcome that we don't like. The benefits outweigh some of the individual disappointments.

One question that has come up a few times-- and I think this is probably a question for Judge Grimm that has-- it came up in our discussion and has come up in the questions today. Can you explain injunctions? We talked a little bit about the idea of judge shopping and injunctions that have happened over the last several years, where you have a district court judge in one place that is issuing a decision that impacts the whole country. And it's happened over different presidencies and different issues. Some people like them until they don't like them. So can you talk about what an injunction is and maybe what the process might be for changing that if there is one?

PAUL GRIMM: Sure. A little bit of ancient history. We got our legal system from Great Britain. And back in Great Britain, the law was divided into two big, broad categories. There was law, and then there was equity. And law was, Parliament passed a law. The king came up with a decree. And that was a source of law. And traditionally, at law, disputes were decided by juries.

Equity ultimately came out of the division because there used to be church courts, ecclesiastic courts and then there were law courts. And then they all merged. And in the United States, the courts of law and equity have been merged together. And the distinction is, is that an injunction is a form of a remedy that existed under equity, that allowed a judge to issue an order, while a case was pending, that ordered people to either do certain things that they should have done and didn't, or stop doing things that they should not have done.

In the federal system, there are three types of injunctions that can occur. One is a temporary restraining order. And emphasis on the word temporary, because it can only last for two weeks. It's subject to being renewed once. But it's a very brief order that's designed to allow the judge to freeze things.

So let's say that somebody has brought a lawsuit against another party. And all of a sudden, they get word that that party, who thinks that the case is not going their way, has bank accounts, and they're starting to clear out those bank accounts and give that money to a family member so that it cannot be available if the party that is trying to sue recovers it. The judge would be able to avoid irreparable injury. They're very strict standards.

The judge has to decide that the party that has seeking the injunction has indicated that they have a likelihood of winning. So they have to come forward with facts and say, Judge, here are the facts. And we haven't heard the case yet. We're still going to wait for the evidence. But here are documents. Here are sworn statements. And based upon this, you can look forward in time and say that you have a strong likelihood of winning this case when it's finally decided.

No. 2, if we wait and you don't give us this limited relief, this equitable relief of an injunction, then we will be irreparably injured. Even if we get to the end of the case and we get a judgment, there'll be no money there to satisfy it. And so-- and the rules allow a judge to hear a temporary restraining order with only having heard one side under an emergency-type circumstance.

The next type of injunction is a preliminary injunction. Again, it happens after both sides have had a chance to speak on the issue. And then the judge may decide until this case is over, I am going to issue this order that will do certain things to prevent one side from suffering irreparable injury. And then a judge can use a permanent injunction as a final remedy in a court.

The kind of cases that have made the news in the last 10 years that raise this question about well, is it fair for a judge in one state or another to issue an order that affects everybody in the country? And that is a legitimate issue that has been looked at. And actually, there are calls for reforms that would restrict the ability of a single judge to issue an injunction that would apply across the entire nation.

I think what's important to keep in mind is that the fact of an injunction itself is a long-established legal authority that exists in this country, that has existed from the origin of our country. No. 2, the standards upon which a court must find have been met in order to issue one of these early injunctions is that the side that is asking for it has shown that they have a significant likelihood of winning. So they have to have shown that the party they want to get the injunction against has done something that violates the law, more likely than not, a substantial likelihood of success.

And No. 3, they have to find that if the injunction was not issued, the party who brought the action would suffer injury that could not be remedied in any other way. So they're very narrow in scope. They're very strict requirements. And in every case in which a judge has done that, then the judge has made those preliminary determinations. This is a procedure that the law allows. It is a well-established procedure. And it requires those specific findings.

So that is what we mean when we talk about an injunction. It is extraordinary relief. It should not happen except in the most extreme cases. But those extreme cases are where one side has shown the judge that they have a substantial likelihood of winning the case, and if they don't get this temporary relief, that they will be injured irreparably. And so those are the standards which are there.

Now, some proposals would be that an individual judge not be allowed to do that, but that you have a three-judge panel where the judges were selected from different parts of the country, and that they would come together to decide. All those might be wise to consider. But those would be refining it in a way so that you would prevent the possibility of a judge issuing a temporary restraining order or an injunction that affected more than just the people in that case before that judge, and making sure it was done in a way that complied with the law by having more than one judge weigh in on that. So, stay tuned. There may be some of these changes coming down.

MELINDA VAUGHN: That's great. I think that's really helpful, and also an example of we could read about some of these issues in the news and not understand the full picture of what's going on and where it came from and the history. And I think it's just helpful context.

PAUL GRIMM: Well, there's an old saying that no matter how thin the pancake, there are always two sides. And you don't get a chance, in a short newspaper article or a news clip, to get the full explanation of both sides. And that's why it's so wonderful that Travelers is having these programs that help us speak with members of our community and help unpack some things which are complicated and that people don't have a lot of contact with. It's important to them. And they have a right to have their questions answered. And it's a privilege to have the opportunity to engage with them.

MELINDA VAUGHN: I agree. So on that note, I actually have a question here. We talked in our last week's session about the role that citizens-- that we can play in the judicial system. We talked about jury service and voting and being responsible and savvy consumers of news about the courts. So I'm curious to hear what you think is the most important thing for us as citizens to know about our role in the day-to-day operation of the judicial system and what we can do to help advance and protect the rule of law and the judicial branch. So maybe we can start with you, Judge Collins.

ALLEGRA COLLINS: Yeah. So I think this is a perfect place to start, the civic education, being involved and understanding what our courts do. So many of us are not in our courts on a day-to-day basis, fortunately for many of us. And so understanding the roles that our courts play, that our judges play, the constraints that are put upon us, and then disseminating that education to others and encouraging others to become educated. 

I also think that encouraging younger kids to get educated-- I know that in our schools, oftentimes we have a-- we talk about the executive branch. We talk about the legislative branch. And we don't necessarily talk about the judicial branch.

So I have personally gone into my daughter's school and my son's school and had them come visit the courts when they come downtown, because their stop was always first the legislature and then the governor's mansion. And so now they come into our courts and get to see our courtroom and understand the difference between trial courts and appellate courts, where facts are found, where the law comes from, those types of things. So I really think that just education and this interest is imperative, and to continue to do that in addition to the jury service and in addition to voting.

Judge Grimm? 

PAUL GRIMM: Yeah. I agree with everything Judge Collins said. I think that service on a jury, if you get that chance, I think-- I will tell you that I was a judge for 26 years and had jury trials. I never had a single jury trial where anybody who initially was there in court to be examined to be picked for a jury wanted to be there. And at the end of every single one of them, when I went back and thanked them for their service, they were all glad that they did. So if you get the chance to serve on a jury, please take that chance. I think you'll get a sense from the inside just how carefully the judges and the court people work to make sure that the proceedings are fair, that everybody gets heard fairly.

No. 2 is that I agree also that the companies like Travelers and people like those of you who have been willing to devote some time of your day to listen to this, you're doing exactly what you should be doing, because you don't have daily contact with this system. It is complicated. There's a lot of stuff that you don't really understand because you're not associated with it. And it's complicated. And it's complex. And it's confusing. So ask questions and find out information.

We urge judges to engage with the community, to go out and to speak to the community, to make themselves available, to go to civic organizations, to go to churches, to go to speak at events like Law Day and Constitution Day and to engage with members of the public. And I agree with Judge Collins that it's wonderful to-- for courts to invite members of the public to come in and to see and to explore.

I think also, making up your own mind for yourself. What I think is the strength of our jury system is that individual members of the public are fair-minded. They want to do the right thing. If they only hear one side of a story, then that's the only information they're going to base their decision on. If you start with the assumption that, well, there's another side here, and before I make up my mind, I'd at least like to be exposed to what that other side is so I can balance the two positions and see what makes most sense to me-- I would encourage people to be picky consumers of information.

We-- when I was young and I was just starting out, there were only three TV channels that you could go to, and a few newspapers, and that was pretty much it. That's not the case anymore. There are podcasts. And there are social media sites. And we can get bombarded by information.

And so what I would say is, be discerning. Try and get your information from more than one source. Tell yourself that, OK, I think I understand this side of the story. But is there another one? What is that? And then try to reach out.

Now look, you're all busy. You all have families. You all have jobs. You all have things that you're dealing with that are important. But this is important, too. So when you can, take the opportunity in order to do that.

And then you are voters. And you make decisions as a voter. When you're voting for a judge at the state level, make sure that you think those people are qualified and that they have the experience and that they have the temperament and that they have the judgment and that they have the fairness that you would want. And ask yourself, if I was in a case where someone was accusing me of something or I was trying to get a recovery, would I think I would get a fair shake from that person? So look at that.

And I think that what I would leave people with is there's an old saying-- and I've been saying it so often that I think Melinda is good not to cringe every time she hears me say it. But we need to disagree with each other without being disagreeable. We are one people. When you talk to individuals one-on-one-- I've had the pleasure of living and working in many parts of this country. And there's not a part of this country where I haven't met people who were wonderful people.

And yes, I find that what we have in common is much more than what we have that we disagree about. So listen to the other person and find out that you might be able to learn something from that. Ask questions to get the information. And then think about it and talk about it with your family, with your friends, with the people who are your faith leaders and with people whose judgments you trust.

And remember that ultimately, we are supposed to be the United States of America. And we are better when we operate as one people than we are when we try to divide ourselves. And when you are in an environment where people are generating heat but not a lot of light, those divisions sometimes can get in the way of exercising the kind of restraint and careful deliberation. When you are making decisions about others, ask yourself if you are displaying the same kind of characteristics that you would want in a judge who was deciding the case about you. And if the answer is yes, then you're probably doing a pretty good job.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Great. Thank you. Thanks to both of you for being here. Janice, I think we're about out of time. Did you have anything you wanted to get in there?

JANICE BRUNNER: It's so well said. Thank you so much for joining us today. I think we could easily talk another hour. And I apologize that we haven't been able to get through all the questions in the chat. We will talk with Judge Collins and Judge Grimm and Melinda about how we could possibly answer some of these questions, because they are so important. And I think what's so encouraging about today is just how engaged people are and how interested people are in our system. And I echo everything that our panelists have said today.

So, thank you so much for joining us.

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Text: Civics Break, presented by the Bolch Judicial Institute of Duke Law School. Logos: Duke Law, Bolch Judicial Institute. 

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If you have completed all four sessions, please feel free to email us at Citizen Travelers at travelers.com for a certificate.

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Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute. Take Our Survey: Link in Chat. Watch Replays: Travelers Institute dot-org. Visit Bolch to Learn More: A QR code sits beneath the text toward the right of the slide. 

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And we hope to keep these conversations going. You will also receive a T-shirt if you did complete all four sessions. There's a link that I think Jessica put in the chat, which you can use to claim one of the T-shirts. They're available on a first-come, first-served basis. 

So, thank you very much to our panelists. Thank you very much to Duke Law, the Bolch Judicial Institute, for making this program available to us. We learned so much.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Thanks. 

PAUL GRIMM: Thank you very much for having us.

MELINDA VAUGHN: Thank you for having me.

ALLEGRA COLLINS: Thanks so much for having us.

MELINDA VAUGHN: It was fun. Really appreciated it.

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Text: Citizen Travelers (service mark) at the Travelers Institute.