The skin of the judge

 

The  third branch of government, the judiciary, has long been the feudal instance in the democratic or quasi-democratic nation-states. It is a system framed by, on one end, cages for people, and on the other end, retainers of the worst and the dullest, otherwise known as Your Honor.

 

I am aware that this feudal instance might work as a bulwark not only against the power of the masses, but against the oppression of the minority. Sometimes, these things overlap. In the United States, for instance, the brief flare of juridical liberalism was one of the great cogs in the machine that battered down apartheid – although it then acted as a great cog to re-Jim Crow the country by caging millions of African-Americans. In same way, the Court is now caging women in their own bodies, merrily making up precedents for its misogyny oujt of quotes from witchhunters and defenders of wife-rape in the 17th century.

 

My favorite quote about judges and the judiciary from a  16th century comes from a Hugh Latimer sermon, perhaps his most famous sermon. Hugh Latimer is famous as a martyr under “bloody Mary.” He was burned to death nearly five hundred years ago, on October 16^th, 1555 with Nicholas Ridley. History today gives a nice short account:

 

“Ridley went to the pyre in a smart black gown, but the grey-haired Latimer, who had a gift for publicity, wore a shabby old garment, which he took off to reveal a shroud. Ridley kissed the stake and both men knelt and prayed. After a fifteen-minute sermon urging them to repent, they were chained to the stake and a bag of gunpowder was hung round each man’s neck. The pyre was made of gorse branches and faggots of wood. As the fire took hold, Latimer was stifled by the smoke and died without pain, but poor Ridley was not so lucky. The wood was piled up above his head, but he writhed in agony and repeatedly cried out, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me’ and ‘I cannot burn’.”

 

This man to be burnt was a great sermon-maker, and this is his sermon about judges. It has the whiff of the pyre about it – Latimer was always primed for the flames, that’s how he lived.

 

“Cambyses was a great Emperor, such another as our master is; he had many Lord deputies, Lord presidents, and Lieutenants under him. It is a great while ago sith I read the history. It chanced he had under him in one of his dominions a briber, a gift taker, a gratifier of rich men, he followed gifts, as fast as he that followed the pudding, a hand maker in his office, to make his son a great man, as the old saying is, Happy is the child whose father goeth to the Devil.

2

The cry of the poor widow came to the Emperor’s ear, and caused him to flay the judge quick, and laid his skin in his chair of judgement, that all judges, that should give judgement afterward, should sit in the same skin. Surely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge’s skin: I pray God we may once see the sign of the skin in England. Ye will say peradventure that this is cruelly and uncharitably spoken: no, no, I do it charitably for a love I bear to my country. God saith, Ego visitabo, I will visit. God hath two visitations. The first is, when he revealeth his word by preachers and where the first is accepted, the second cometh not. The second visitation is vengeance. He went a visitation, when he brought the judge’s skin over his ears. If his word be despised he cometh with his second visitation with vengeance.”   The second visitation I identify with the terrible swift sword in the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I hope that chopping time isn’t coming, but with the SCOTUS poised to issue any ruling it pleases and be obeyed, I think the established order is near a breaking point.