Judicial Visitors

By Richard Eadie

Maya Angelou observed that “Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere...” This principle applies to courts and legal systems as well. Judges, lawyers, legislators and administrators from literally around the globe come to King County Superior Court full of questions about how we manage our courtrooms and trials.

In the recent past we have had many visitors from Asian countries, as well as guests from Central and South America, Canada, Western and Central Europe, Turkey and Egypt.

Easily the subject of most interest to our visitors is trial by jury and the independence of our juries. Often they want to know what judges do when juries come up with the wrong result. It seems that it is difficult for those from countries without a history of juries to accept the amount of independence our jurors exercise. However we see countries that do not have a clearly established history of jury trials moving in that direction.

If visitors from other countries have a hard time understanding our jury system, they really have a problem with the concept of elected judges. Of course many citizens of this country have the same difficulty. We even had the Walsh Commission in this state a few years ago looking for alternatives to popular election of judges. The King County Bar Association and others will hold a conference November 11, 2005 to address the issue of judicial selection process.

Historically, the concept of elected public officers, including judges, spread along with the western movement and populism. I have been told that there are more elective public offices in Washington State than in any other state in the union.

Another area in which visitors from other countries often express interest is our juvenile court system and the separation of juvenile and adult prisoners.

It is a credit to our legal system that, despite well-publicized criticisms, many countries look to our system as a model, and the questions raised by our visitors give cause for us to reflect on our own practices.

Any doubt that I had about people being more alike than unalike was erased when I came upon T. Eric Peet’s book titled The Great Tomb Robberies of the Twentieth Egyptian Dynasty (1186-1069 BCE). Several papyri have been found from this dynasty that describe the discovery, investigation and trial of suspected robbers of several royal tombs near Thebes.

Pharaoh Ramesses IX appointed a court which called and examined witnesses in a manner that, but for minor details, is modern in form. The witness is called before the court (more than one judge, as in many Asian and Euro-pean trial courts today); sworn to tell the truth: [Pneferahau] was made to take the oath by the Ruler saying, if [I] speak falsehood let me be mutilated and placed on the stake. [Our oath is, of course, somewhat different in form--but the ancients began the case by taking live testimony before a fact finder, with the witness taking an oath to tell the truth.]

The citizeness Ese was brought, the wife of the gardener Ker of the funerary chapel of Ramose. There was given to her the oath by the Ruler to the effect that if she spoke falsehood she should be mutilated and placed on the stake.

The vizier said to her, What is the story of this silver which your husband [apparently no spousal privilege] brought away from the Great Tombs?

She said, I did not see it.

The scribe Dhutmose said to her, How did you buy the servants that you bought?

She said, I bought them in exchange for crops from my garden.

The case goes on by calling her servant to corroborate her testimony.

There are many other examples of depositions (they use that term) and testimony from the case of the Great Tomb Robberies and the similarity to modern court proceedings seems to me remarkable.

From Joseph Kaster’s book, The Wisdom of Ancient Egypt, we learn that judges of that time were told “look upon him who is known to you like him who is unknown to you; and him who is near the king like him who is far from his house”.

Consistent with Maya Angelou observations, the law’s system of searching for the truth is quite amazingly similar despite separation by vast periods of time and space. We tinker with rules, and processes and procedures, but at its foundation our legal system provides a pretty good time tested means of finding the truth. n