The Ordinary Building Where Extraordinary Power Lives
The Family Court building was not beautiful. It was not meant to be. Like all terrible places, it looks ordinary. But to the men and women who worked there — the judges, the lawyers, the therapists — it was home.
At the center of it all sat The Judge. There is no jury. And what The Judge declared — became true. Not because it was true, but because he said so.
Lord Acton said it plainly.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
In Family Court, you can see it living and breathing.
The Family Court Judge does not wear a crown. He does not command armies, but his power is more precise, more absolute. He controls not nations — but souls. He rules not land — but the bond between parent and child.
There is no jury to temper him. No citizens to object.
The lawyers work beneath him, not beside him. The therapists work at his command. The evaluators write reports that disappear into his file. He is at the top of a structure built to insulate him from ordinary life.
The Tyranny of One: Power Without Witness
This was the nightmare Lord Acton warned against: not the tyrant with soldiers in the street — but the Judge in a quiet courtroom, pronouncing the destruction of a family with a few words, recorded neatly, stamped by a clerk, and entered into the system forever. What is more absolute than that?
If the Judge says a mother is unstable — she is unstable.
If the Judge says a father is dangerous — he is dangerous.
If the Judge says a child is better off forgetting — the forgetting begins.
It is not the King’s tyranny of taxes or land. It is not the gallows. It is exile from your own child.
And this is done without a crime. Without a jury. Without proof, beyond doubt. Often without proof at all.
Lord Acton was speaking of Popes and Princes. But he might as well have spoken of the Family Court Judge. Because power unchecked does not care about time or title. And in Family Court, it has been allowed to grow. A single man or woman, unquestioned, deciding the fate of a family not because of law — but because they can.
Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And what is the power to erase a parent from a child’s life — forever — if not absolute?
Why The Founders Gave Us the Jury
The founders of the American nation were not naïve. They had seen the King and the King’s Judges. They had seen a courtroom where one man controlled the evidence, the verdict, and the punishment.
And so, when they built their new republic, they built it with the jury.
Twelve human shields between the citizen and power.
They knew a trial without a jury was not a trial.
It was sentencing in disguise.
Without a jury, the Judge becomes the law.
Without a jury, the Judge decides who wins.
Without a jury, the Judge becomes the King.
The Room Where Freedom Died
In Family Court, the Judge decides who speaks and who stays silent. He decides which facts matter and which do not. He decides whether a mother will see her children or disappear from their lives.
He decides whether a father will be a parent or a visitor. He decides these things alone. No jury hears the evidence. No jury weighs the credibility of witnesses.
No jury listens to the child’s voice and says: “Enough.”
No jury stands between the power of the State and the terror of the ordinary citizen facing the destruction of their family.
In Family Court, the Judge is older than the King. Older than the Constitution. Older than the idea of freedom. He is power — pure, stripped, and ancient — the kind of power men once fled across the ocean to escape.
The founders knew. That is why they gave us juries. Because power — real power — does not rage. It sits quietly in its throne or bench and decrees. Without a jury, there is nothing left to stop it.
That is Family Court — where the Judge is more than the King. Because even the King, once upon a time, feared twelve good men and true. But in Family Court, there are no twelve.
There is only One.
There is no shield.
There is only the Judge.
