JUDGE, public officer to whom is commit ted the exercise of judicial power of the state in the administration of justice in its courts. It is his province to decide questions of law, and in cases in which facts are to be decided by a jury to instruct the jury as to the law which is applicable and to point out to them what the exact questions for their determination are. (See Juav). He pronounces the sentence, or enters the judgment, of the court.
The word is not a technical one. The offi cers of the King's Court, when that tribunal began to take definite shape, were known offi cially as justices. Until the recent Judicature Acts in England it was customary formally, as well as popularly, to speak of the judges of the superior courts at Westminster, though the members of the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas were properly justices, and of the Court of Exchequer barons, and at the present time the members of the Supreme Court of Judicature, including the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls and the Lords of Appeal are spoken of as the judges of that court. English judges are ap pointed by the Crown (this patronage being exercised by the Lord Chancellor, who is the head of the legal profession) from the leaders of the bar, and hold office during good behavior.
In all the Federal courts, in all the higher courts of the several States and in most of the inferior courts, judges must be trained in the law, though lay judges were common in the State courts of first instance until quite recent times. Federal judges are appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and hold office during good be havior, being removable only by impeachment.
Any Federal judge who has served for 10 years and is 70 years of age may retire on full pay for life. The choice of judges in the States is determined by the State constitutions. As a general rule they are elected for a term of years. The fear was quite generally ex pressed at the time the tendency to make the office an elective one became general, that judges so chosen would be inferior to those ap pointed by the State governors, but does not seem to have been justified by the result. In most of the State courts the small salaries paid and the limited terms of office prevent the leading members of the bar from seeking, and in many cases from accepting, the office of judge.
A judge must be impartial and any interest in the cause or the parties will disqualify him from presiding at the trial. While in office he is precluded from practising before the court of which he is a member, and he is commonly, and should be universally, precluded from prac tising before any court. He is not answerable to any suitor for the correctness of his rulings or decisions, and in the absence of positive fraud is not answerable in damages for any decision he may render. Every judge has power to punish for contempt of court in case of acts committed during the court's session, and even of such acts committed outside the court, though this latter power is to be exer cised with care, and its limits are naturally not defined with certainty. For the peculiar func tions exercised by American judges as interpre ters of the Federal and State constitutions, see