Securing Courtroom Decorum

Abstract

The spectacle of United States v. Dellinger,' has impelled two distinguished organizations of the legal profession to promulgate rules designed to secure courtroom decorum. In July, 1970, the American College of Trial Lawyers, through a special Committee on Disruption of the Judicial Process, published its Report and Recommendations. In January, 1971, the American Bar Association received a report on Standards Relating to the Function of a Trial Judge from its Advisory Committee on the Judge's Function, a constituent of the ABA's Project on Standards for Criminal Justice. Both reports aim explicitly at clarifying the standards of behavior that are expected in a courtroom and the disciplinary procedure and sanctions to be employed when those standards are violated. Both reports also aim implicitly at inhibiting such violations. Many of their proposals are identical or substantially similar. There are, however, significant differences in their approaches to coping with deliberately deviant behavior in the courtroom. In the latter respect the Reports echo larger and louder debates which have been going on for some time now and which will have to come closer to conclusion before the problem of forensic misconduct can be satisfactorily resolved. In the meantime, the proposals advanced in the Reports provide an invitation for the bench and bar to ponder what may be achieved by more carefully considered rules on the subject.