Sleeping On The Bench: Conduct To Be Condemned Or "Harmless Error" ???

Let me start by saying that this post is not about poor, down-on-their-luck homeless people looking to catch a few winks on the bench in a neighborhood park or at a bus stop.

The blog, Bits Of News, recently ran a piece on a subject that I found quite interesting - the issue of trial judges who, in the course of presiding over a court proceeding and without formally calling for a recess and retiring to their chambers, take an occasional nap in plain view of those in the courtroom. Included in the story is a description of the presiding judge in a criminal trial who reportedly was seen by the jury nodding off during parts of the proceeding. The trial ended in a conviction of the defendant and, despite the judge's reported nap-taking tendencies, was upheld on appeal. For more, see When Justice Sleeps: The Law on Snoozing at the Bench.

For other stories of judges accused of taking occasional snoozes on the bench, see:

• Asleep On The Bench (Sleeping judges) (North Country Gazette),
• Allegation of Sleeping Judge Raises Questions (New Hampshire Public Radio),
• A judge is essential, preferably conscious (The Sydney Morning Herald),
• Utah judges are sent a wake-up call (Are Utah judges sleeping on the job?) (Deseret News).

In defense of our robed members of the court system, a "Letter to the Editor" appears in the Utah Bar Journal, in which the writer (who identifies himself as a judge) suggests that the problem with sleeping judges may rest with the attorneys appearing before them who may be "mumbling and stumbling with mind-numbing effect" in their courtroom presentations, as well as those barristers so mesmerized by their own eloquence that they just don't know when to shut up (asking "Do you make your point and then just stop talking, or do you flog it until the judicial mind retreats to sleep in self-defense?").

The above "Letter to the Editor" was written in response to this "Letter to the Editor" (also from the Utah Bar Journal) which tries to address ways to deal with the problem of the occasional snoozing judge. naughty judges