I don’t have a problem with it. As far as I know the only other person people stand for is the president. Maybe the VP? The military folks stand for higher ranking officers. I guess it’s to show respect.
What about outside the US , is standing common?
I suspect that it has something to do with “never show your back to royalty”. Standing shows that the person (for want of a better term - being standed to) is the most important person in the room and you are ready to pay attention to whatever they say.
I knew people from Scotland who still made a thing of standing when a woman entered the room.
We do it in Canada.
It’s not standing up for the judge. We stand up for the court. The judge is the representative of the court. It is a sign of respect for one of the primary institutions to guarantee the rule of law and non-violent dispute resolution.
When it’s a jury trial, we stand for the jurors when they enter and leave, even if the judge stays in the courtroom. That’s because the jury is also part of the court, carrying out a solemn responsibility to decide a dispute.
In trial, the participants also stand whenever the jurors enter or leave the room.
It’s an old fashioned sign of respect/deference.
Because the bailiff says “All rise” and the bailiff has a big stick.
(seriously… a lot of people wouldn’t do it if the bailiff didn’t remind everybody).
It’s not just the military. I worked for a state agency which was eventually merged with a larger agency. The larger agency was the one that ran the prison system - and after the merger, we were required to stand whenever someone above a certain rank entered the area. It’s my understanding that this is also common in police departments.
I was on a jury and I was amused to see that.
There’s a practical effect too. When everyone rises, they naturally stop talking. It focuses all the attention on the judge. She can then start talking or allowing others to talk and they will be heard.
We rise at a wedding when the bride enters.
We rise when “Hallelujah” is sung in the Messiah.
It’s a sign of respect, recognizing a special thing is happening.
I was before a judge once who didn’t want everyone to stand for routine matters (no jurors, etc) I swear, it’s so ingrained, for the lawyers at least, we hopped to our feet every time he came in or went out.
On the other side of the spectrum, I was once in a new jurisdiction for me. The judge came in and the opposing lawyers remained seated. I figured it was the local custom, so I did too. The judge reminded all of us that it’s expected.
This one is dumb. It may or may not be true that the origins of it are from George II standing up to stretch his legs during a performance of it (there’s no actual evidence for this), but it is true that “we do it because we do it” and have done so since the 18th century. There’s nothing particularly special about that movement of the Messiah compared to most of the other ones.
“You may ask, how did this tradition get started? I’ll tell you…I don’t know. But it’s a tradition, and because of our traditions we’ve kept our balance for many, many years.”
I went to a girls’ private school where we all had to rise when a teacher came into the room at the start of class. It’s a good way to shut everyone up and pay attention to what’s happening at the front of the room.
(We also had to ignore the bell and wait to be dismissed at the end of class).
This is actually quite brilliant. Why the hell don’t classrooms adopt this custom?
I had a job once that involved administrative hearings. There was a group of lawyers that handled these hearings regularly and we could always tell when a lawyer was new to this type of hearing , because they kept jumping up and down - when the ALJ came into the room, when the lawyer was speaking etc.
One answer might be, “education is, or should be, a democratic process and deference to the teacher–or the system–is thus not appropriate.”
Not for the teacher but we’d stand if the principal or priest visited our classroom. There was also a sort of sing-song greeting that was always the same: Good afterNOON, Father Blank.
As a former judge’s assistant, I rose and sat so many times I couldn’t count them, together with the rest of the court staff.
Our bailiffs were sheriff’s deputies who were required to rotate regularly into court service. Some hated it and slouched through their stints. Others took great pride in their work.
I worked for a short time with a bailiff who took his duties a little too seriously. Every time court resumed session, he would lead the staff and judge out the door into the courtroom and bellow, “ALL RISE!!” Pure theatre and it definitely got everyone’s attention.
Once after bellowing, a man remained seated in the front row, just behind the rail that divided the courtroom from the gallery. The bailiff strode meaningfully and almost menacingly toward the man, staring daggers and yelling again, “ALL RISE!!!” We all watched in abject embarrassment as the poor fellow struggled valiantly to rise… from his wheelchair. The bailiff had never noted we had carve-outs in the gallery seating particularly designed for wheelchairs to tuck into the first row.
As I said, the bailiff’s stay was a short one.
I was trying to count how many teachers have told me a classroom isn’t a democracy but I flunked higher mathematics.
Pratchett?