Why are magisterial judges not addressed with &quot;your majesty?&quot; Magisterial judges tend to be lower-level judges, but court officers (e.g., lawyers) still address them as "your honor." It seems, given the title of their office, that "your majesty" would be the most appropriate form of addressing the office. Has that ever been used? If not, are there logical or historical reasons it has not?
tl;dr: The terms have separate etymologies. Majesty derives from greatness, while magistrate comes from mastering something (people or a trade). Majesty Middle English (in the sense 'greatness of God'): from Old French majeste, from Latin majestas, from a variant of majus, major. Also, c. 1300, &quot;greatness, glory,&quot; from Old French majeste &quot;grandeur, nobility&quot; (12c.), from Latin maiestatem (nominative maiestas) &quot;greatness, dignity, elevation, honor, excellence,&quot; from stem of maior (neuter maius), comparative of magnus &quot;great&quot; (see magnate). Earliest English us is with reference to God; as a title, in reference to kings and queens (late 14c.), it is from Romance languages and descends from the Roman Empire. Magistrate Latin magistratus ‘administrator’, from magister ‘master’. This also gives us master (Old English), its weakened form mister (mid 16th century), and miss. Also, late 14c., &quot;civil officer in charge of administering laws,&quot; from Old French magistrat, from Latin magistratus &quot;a magistrate, public functionary,&quot; originally &quot;magisterial rank or office,&quot; from magistrare &quot;serve as a magistrate,&quot; from magister &quot;chief, director&quot; (see master).
Generally speaking, ex parte communications with a judge (i.e. communications to which all parties to a case are not notified) are prohibited, both by law and as a matter of judicial and attorney ethics, subject to some narrow exceptions (e.g. applications for arrest warrants prior to the arrest warrant being carried out). Generally speaking, communications with the court (which is to say with judges or their subordinates) are made a matter of public record, and if the communication is about a particular case, all attorneys in the case must be given notice of it (if someone is not represented by an attorney, the notice goes to the defendant rather than their non-existent attorney). The attorney may then communicate the communication to their client, and generally speaking should communicate it to the client. I don't see anything in the question that suggests that this proposed communication would fall outside the general rule. But, the question isn't very specific and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that an exception might apply in a case with very unusual facts. Also, usually, a request to reconsider a sentence has to be made by a formal motion filed by the prosecutor or the defendant. Generally speaking, a third-party cannot file that motion unilaterally. A third-party or victim would usually only have input into the decision through the prosecutor's office. Third parties and victims are not generally permitted to file motions to reconsider sentences that have been imposed even in states with "victim's rights" statutes, but can publicly provide input to the court before a sentence is imposed, usually at the behest of either the prosecutor or the defendant. Furthermore, generally a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to not have a sentence made more severe after being sentenced the first time around. Reconsideration of a sentence once it is imposed may only be in the direction of leniency. Once a sentence is imposed, it can't be reconsidered to be made more harsh.
The Fifth and Sixth Amendments are about civil and criminal court proceedings. They do not apply to a university's internal disciplinary procedures, which are the subject of the Dear Colleague letter. Note for example the text of the Fifth Amendment: ... or be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. A university's disciplinary procedures do not deprive anyone of their life, liberty, or property. Typically, they only decide whether to suspend or expel the person as a student at the university, or apply other academic punishments (failing grades, marks on transcript, etc). I don't think there needs to be any law "affirming" this. Rather, there is simply no law that requires universities to use Fifth / Sixth amendment standards in their internal disciplinary procedures.
If this judge is truly biased, won't the litigants be all the more glad to have a jury of their peers? You are proposing to abandon your duty to others. At trial you serve the community, not the judge. Back on scope for Law SE: If you refuse to serve on a jury, that could be a separate offense or general criminal contempt, for which you (this all depends on your jurisdiction) could get 30-90 days in jail. Edit: like several others have pointed out, I would not expect much trouble if you politely told the court that you felt you would be biased b/c of past connections. Even if the judge doesn't dismiss you, one of the litigants is likely to strike you. P.S. In most states, no one except a prosecutor (sometimes another state employee) can "take someone" to a criminal court. Individuals can only take someone to civil trial, where one cannot be sentenced, only ordered to pay a judgement.
Was/is it permissible for judges in the US to talk ex-parte like that? No. Ex parte interactions of that sort are not allowed. See, for instance, Disciplinary Counsel v. Bachman, 2020-Ohio-732 (Dec. 18, 2020) and Maze v. Judicial Conduct Commission, 2019-SC-0691-RR (Dec. 17, 2020). An example of less recent decision but with a reporter citation number is Comm'n on Judicial Performance v. Bozeman, 302 So.3d 1217 (2020). For situations of imminent risk of irreparable harm, procedural law provides for ex parte motions and ex parte petitions, such as this granted petition for Personal Protection Order. See M[ichigan]CR 3.7003(G). But the scenarios you depict fall short of the necessity for which ex parte provisions are intended. do the above scenes in the movies essentially portray judicial misconduct? Yes. A judge's house is inappropriate for communicating, let alone ex parte, his ruling (I am not knowledgeable of the films but my understanding of your description is that that judge made the ruling on the application). As for The Untouchables, any evidence of jurors' &amp; judges' conflict of interest and likely bias has to be filed in court and comply with procedural law so that all parties have an opportunity to litigate the matter.
I will only address this part of the question: Who would be able to authoritatively decide the constitutionality of such a question, with all Supreme Court justices having clear conflict of interest on the matter? The Supreme Court could still hear such a case, as the justices make their own decisions about when to recuse themselves. In particular, they might decide to hear the case based on the "Rule of Necessity", which says roughly that a biased judge is better than none at all: a judge can hear a case, even in the presence of a conflict of interest, if there is no other way for it to be heard. See United States v. Will, 449 U.S. 200 (1980), in which the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that federal courts could try a case related to the salaries of federal judges. Another possibility is that the case could be brought in a lower federal court, say District Court. There is a question here: the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls" (US Constitution, Article III, Section 2), and I do not know whether Supreme Court justices are "public Ministers". However, if a lower court did have jurisdiction, it could rule on the constitutionality of the question, since a District Court judge would not have a significant conflict of interest. The relevant Circuit Court of Appeals could presumably hear an appeal. If the Circuit Court's ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court felt that they all had conflicts of interest (and decided not to invoke the Rule of Necessity), then they could simply not vote to grant certiorari, in which case the Circuit Court's ruling would stand.
In practice, common law courts turn to academic writing, either law review articles or legal treatises or the &quot;Restatements of Law&quot;, on a regular, but infrequent basis. These sources are not binding sources of legal authority but can shed persuasive light on the logic behind a legal rule or the course of action that has been taken in previous similar cases. In civil law countries (i.e. those not descended from the legal system of England), there are far fewer circumstances in which court precedents are sources of law. Much of the gap in credible sources for how ambiguities in the statutory law should be interpreted in these countries comes from academic writing. In a typical civil law country, a leading law professor has more impact on how the law is interpreted than senior appellate court judges. Again, academic writings are not binding legal authority, but in the absence of alternative sources for material interpreting statutes, they are very persuasive.
how are judges in the UK appointed to cases in general? The Resident Judge or the Presiding Judge of the relevant court allocates cases to their fellow judges. Residing Judges sit at specific courts (e.g. all Crown courts will have a Resident Judge). Presiding Judges oversee specific circuits (e.g. the Western circuit). [how was the judge appointed] to this case in particular? All extradition cases start off at Westminster Magistrates Court, therefore Vanessa Baraitser, the District Judge assigned to this case, would have been given the case by order of Emma Arbuthnot, the Chief Magistrate of England and Wales. This is because the Chief Magistrate is the Resident Judge for that court, although in reality I presume she didn't personally make the decision to assign the case. The case listing system may simply have picked Ms. Baraitser as the next available judge to hear this case.