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Judge
Presides over court proceedings, interprets law, and delivers verdicts and sentences.
Did you know?
Judges in England and Wales still wear wigs in criminal trials, a tradition dating from the 1680s, but dropped them for civil cases in 2008.
How subjects help
- Law: Decide which laws apply to a case and what sentence fairly fits the crime.
- History: Study earlier court decisions so similar cases are treated in a similar way.
- Philosophy: Weigh fairness and justice when the law does not give a clear answer.
- Logic: Test whether the evidence really proves what each side claims it does.
A famous name
Thurgood Marshall: Became the first African-American justice on the US Supreme Court, serving from 1967 to 1991.
Try it yourself: Weigh up a case like a judge
- Read the made-up case card slowly, like a judge reading the facts.
- For each fact, decide whether it makes things more serious (an aggravating factor) or less serious (a mitigating factor), and sort them into two lists.
- Choose one outcome from the options on the card, and write one sentence explaining which facts mattered most.
- Ask someone at home to do the same without seeing yours, then compare. Did you weigh the same facts differently?
Judges and magistrates weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors of each case, following sentencing guidelines, before deciding; lawyers argue about which factors should count.
Adapted from Sentencing Council for England and Wales: You be the Judge.
Also try: Be the referee.
Known for it in
USA, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada