John Noonan was a major figure not only as a judge and legal scholar but also as an intellectual historian and moral philosopher. This jacketed hardback, Judging the Judges, is John Noonan's "account of the job of a judge by a judge." It is in the judge's recognition of the other persons involved in the judicial process, and above all of those who must personally bear the consequences of the court's decision, that the judge fulfills his or her role.
Long before he wrote this book, John Noonan expressed the hope that "every so often in a human heart the ice will crack, and a human person will acknowledge his responsibility for other human beings he has touched." Judging the Judges sets out his argument that this hope can be realized in the judicial process, and, if it can, then of course it should be. That is a message for all times, all courts, and all of us.
