It brings to mind two quotations found at pages 203 and 205 of Fred Shapiro’s book, “Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations” (Oxford 1993). The first is by Learned Hand who, on the occasion of his 50th year on the federal bench, observed: “It is what a poet does, it is what a sculptor does. He has some vague purposes and he has an infinite number of what you might call frames of preference among which he must choose: for choose he has to, and he does. So, I like to think the work of a judge is an art.”

More prosaically, Ed Koch related that, when running for Mayor in 1973, he told a group of senior citizens of a judge who had been mugged. “‘And do you know what he did? He called a press conference and said that mugging would in no way affect his judicial decisions in matters of this kind.’ And an elderly lady stood up in the back of the room and said, ‘Then mug him again!’”

F. Peter Phillips
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