Ethics in the Courts
The Delaware Judiciary (n.d.) describes one of their core visions as to “insure equal application of the judicial process to all cases, which are fairly decided based upon legally relevant factors.” This equal application and fair decision must be rooted in an ethical foundation. “Because an understanding of judicial ethics is part and parcel of a true appreciation for the core values of the judiciary-judicial independence, integrity, and impartiality-this cannot be an optional project” (Rosenblum, 2007, p. 403). Several standards of conduct exist that relates to ethics in the courtroom, including the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, the Code of Conduct for Federal Judges, and the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. Judges, who preside over a court, and attorneys, who battle each other in court, are both held to high ethical standards.
Judges are sworn to administer justice within their courtroom. Judges swear to do this without respect to the people involved but with respect to the Constitution and the laws of the United States (Legal Information Institute, n.d.). This would imply that a judge should not import their emotions, opinions, convictions, or biases into their courtroom decisions. However, this is not the case as judges are human like the rest of us. Ethical behavior by a judge would eliminate favoritism, bias, and impropriety, and carry over into their personal conduct. Appleby & Blackham (2018) assert that there is a current trend toward the “transparent ethical regulation for serving judges” which is said to “promote public confidence in the judicial institution” (p. 506). These ethical codes are independent and do not - can not - eliminate a judge’s personality or emotions to bleed over into their decision making. This is another case of relative ethics, in which there is no specific line between ethical and unethical actions.
Attorneys, both on the prosecution and defense side of the courtroom, are also faced with challenges of ethics. Attorneys “must be legally and morally bound to ethical principles as agents of the courts” (Peak, 2012, p. 288). Attorneys are ethically bound to put justice over winning, which unfortunately is rarely the case in today’s court proceedings. Ethical principles also prohibit misconduct such as deception or lying, bribery, concealment of evidence, among other things.