Book cover 'Her Honor' by Judge LaDoris Cordell. Courtesy photo 'I Was an Activist Judge': Judge LaDoris Cordell Chews on the Meaning of Judicial Independence in New Memoir
"An activist judge is a judge who respects precedent, respects the rule of law, but, at the same time, uses every single minute of their time on the bench to consider what can make that legal system better," says Cordell, the first Black woman to sit on a Superior Court bench in Northern California.
December 01, 2021 at 07:30 AM
6 minute read
Judge LaDoris Cordell, the first Black woman to sit on a Superior Court bench in Northern California, doesn't accept the widely promulgated notion of activist judges as precedent-evading rogues who rule based on their own political beliefs. In her new memoir, "Her Honor," Cordell writes she believes "judges are either activists for justice or black-robed do-nothings."
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