Judges Don’t Use Gavels 

To prepare for the Stranger Election Control Board process, I slip a couple of fun questions up my sleeve to shake out in a moment of tension—people cry, they tangle their fingers, they stare into space as their campaign crashes around them, they torture one another with opposition research, and they ruin congenial atmospheres with shouting—because tension is inevitable between political competitors.

Since we had five Supreme Court races and a handful of local judicial races from every level of our courts in the mix, I wanted to know about gavels: Were they fun to use? I assumed so. They’re loud, imposing, and say, with the full might of the state, “everyone shut up—now.” Who hasn’t needed that?

Not judges, apparently. Few owned gavels, and not even one had as much as tapped a gavel in a courtroom. Judges prefer to take control of their courtrooms by speaking softly. Television and movies had lied to me—what’s next, learning our greatest chefs don’t have instructive rodent companions? Most said gavels are a lot of fun for kids, an answer which made me feel like both a child and an imbecile.

Mind you, I should have known that bailiffs, not the nine justices, bang the gavel in the Washington State Supreme Court. “If we all had gavels it would be a party up there,” said sitting Justice Colleen Melody. “‘You’re out of order, no you’re out of order.’” Justice Melody does not own a gavel, but bought one for Justice Theo Angelis to commemorate his first case. It cost $150, which is both somehow more expensive and less expensive than I would have thought. In his 25 years as a lawyer, Angelis has never seen a judge use one. 

Chief Justice Debra L. Stephens, a gavel nut if there ever was one, owns an “amazing” collection of ceremonial gavels she does not use. One has a knitted koozie to “keep it warm.” Another is hewn from trees felled for the construction of the Capitol campus. It was given to her when she was sworn in as Chief Justice.

We heard tell of a “very large gavel” owned by a judge in King County District Court, a bedazzled gavel, the gavel Garmon Newsom used in mock trial, and the gavel given to Superior Court Judge Shaun O’Donnell by his opposing counsel in a sexual assault case when he was a prosecutor. The “fantastic” public defender who took up wood carving in retirement. “It’s actually beautiful, so it sits right there at my desk—I look at it every day, but I don’t use it.” Typical. 

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