There are various situations in which an individual speaker (or writer) will use the first person plural pronoun to say something like "we believe," even though he is speaking solely for himself. Wikipedia explains that:
Pluralis majestatis ("majestic plural") is the plural pronoun where it is used to refer to one person alone. This is also known as the "royal "we"" or the "Victorian "we"" because it has usually been restricted to august personages such as monarchs, bishops, Popes, and university rectors. The idea behind the pluralis majestatis is that a monarch or other high official always speaks for his or her people.
The "editorial we" is similar, in that "the writer has once more cast himself or herself in the role of spokesman: either for the media institution who employs him, or more generally on behalf of the party or body of citizens who agree with the commentary." (Here at PB.com, we occasionally have come in for cri ticism for using the "editorial we" formulation, but since we are a spokesperson for all those right-minded readers who agree with us, our use thereof is perfectly appropriate in our view.)
All of which is preface to Orin Kerr's discussion of the use by trial judges of what might be called the "judicial we." Much of the discussion in the comments focuses on whether the trial judge is acting as a spokesman for the court, which the erudite references we provide for our readers herein suggest is the right question.
In any event, Orin opines:
... some readers suggest that district court judges properly use ?we? because their rulings are understood to be rulings of the entire Court as an institution. This is a possibility, but I?m not sure the argument works. First, individual judges who are members of the same Court can disagree on an issue, so one judge?s ruling isn?t necessarily the view of other judges. Second, I don?t think I have ever heard a single trial judge use ?we? when making a ruling from the bench in open court. In my experience, at least, judges in court usually are comfortable with using ?I? when making oral rulings; it?s the switch from oral to written decisions that seems to trigger the occasional switch from ?I? to ?we.?
What do we think? Does the "judicial we" make sense? Or is it just pomposity? Also, question for lawyers, have we ever heard a trial judge use the "judicial we" orally from the bench (other than in reading an opinion into the record)?
(Bonus points for correctly identifying the type of "we" we used in the preceding paragraph.)
BTW, notice that this post introduces a new category tag - Tongue in Cheek - for the benefit of some of our more literal-minded readers.
