The Kids These Days: A Judge’s Verdict on the End of Civility in the Courtroom
The Honorable Judge Marcus Thorne has presided over the Cook County Circuit Court for twenty-three years. He has seen drug dealers, embezzlers, and the occasional murderer. He has seen the worst of humanity. But nothing, he says, has prepared him for the moral and societal collapse he is witnessing every single day from his bench. And it’s not because of the crimes. It’s because of the attitude. The constant, relentless, disrespectful attitude.
“I’m not a dinosaur,” Judge Thorne told me, leaning back in his worn leather chair, the afternoon light catching the dust motes floating in his chambers. “I understand times change. But what I am seeing is not change. It is a systematic breakdown of the basic social contract. The glue that holds this country together is dissolving right in front of me, one TikTok-obsessed, phone-addicted litigant at a time.”
Judge Thorne isn’t talking about a specific high-profile case. He’s talking about the systemic, everyday rot he sees in his courtroom. And his story is a warning for every American who thinks our problems are just about politics or the economy. He argues the problem is much deeper. It’s a crisis of character.
“Yesterday,” he begins, his voice low and weary, “a young man was brought before me for a simple probation violation. He was twenty-two years old. He walked in, AirPods still in his ears, and looked at me like I was an inconvenience in his day. His lawyer had to physically tap his arm to get him to acknowledge my presence. When I asked him why he had missed three mandatory meetings with his parole officer, he shrugged and said, ‘I forgot. I was busy. Like, it’s not that deep.’”
“Not that deep.” Judge Thorne repeats the phrase, letting it hang in the air like a bad smell. “That is the anthem of the new America. Nothing is sacred. Nothing has weight. A court of law, the very institution designed to maintain order, is just another obstacle in their daily feed. They have no concept of authority, no respect for process, and absolutely zero accountability. They are tourists in their own lives, and they treat the justice system like a Yelp review they can just scroll past.”
This isn’t just anecdotal. Judges across the country are reporting a disturbing trend: a surge in courtroom incivility that has nothing to do with the severity of the charges. The American Bar Association has sounded the alarm, noting a rise in “disruptive behavior,” from defendants openly recording proceedings on their phones to outright cursing at the bench. But Judge Thorne believes it’s a symptom of a much larger pandemic: the death of delayed gratification and the rise of the victim mentality.
“They are all victims,” he sighs, shuffling a stack of case files on his desk. “They didn’t rob the liquor store; they were ‘forced to by economic injustice.’ They didn’t assault the officer; they were ‘triggered by systemic oppression.’ They didn’t miss their court date; the bus was late. Every single excuse is a shield. And the shield is made of this thick, impenetrable entitlement. They feel the world owes them a pass, and the people who hold them accountable – the cops, the prosecutors, the judges – are just the villains in their personal narrative.”
The impact on American daily life is not theoretical. When respect for the system evaporates, the system stops working. “We are seeing it in the backlog,” Judge Thorne explains, his voice sharpening. “Cases that should take ten minutes take an hour because I have to spend thirty seconds just trying to get the defendant to look up from his phone. We are seeing it in the plea bargains. Some of these kids are so disconnected from reality that they don’t understand the gravity of a felony conviction. It’s just a ‘bad vibe’ they have to deal with. They have no mental framework for consequence.”
But Judge Thorne reserves his deepest concern for what this means for your neighborhood, your family, your daily commute. “This isn’t a judicial problem. It’s a cultural problem. We have raised a generation on instant gratification, on curated online identities, on the idea that your feelings are the ultimate truth. You walk into a courtroom, and you bring that whole digital fever dream with you. The real world, with its rules and consequences, feels like a glitch in the matrix.”
He points to the rise of “self-help” defendants who reject public defenders and try to argue their cases based on YouTube legal advice from self-proclaimed gurus. “They are being fed a diet of legal anarchy,” he warns. “They think the judge can’t touch them if they cite the ‘UCC 1-308’ clause they found on a blog. They think they can declare themselves ‘sovereign citizens.’ It’s a mental illness, but it’s a socially contagious one. And it’s flooding our courts.”
The result is a system that is grinding to a halt under the weight of performative rebellion. “It’s a show,” Judge Thorne says. “It’s all a show for their phone. And the real victims are the people who actually need the system to work. The single mother trying to get a restraining order. The small business owner trying to collect a debt. The honest citizen who got scammed. They are forced to wait in the hallway while I explain, for the tenth time, that no, I am not a ‘fictional agent of the corporate United States,’ and yes, they do have to sit down and be quiet.”
The judge’s final lament is perhaps the most chilling. “I look out at these young faces, and I don’t see criminals. I see ghosts. Ghosts of a society that forgot how to raise children. Ghosts of a culture that prioritized likes over learning, followers over family, and feelings over facts. They are rude because they have never been taught that civility is a strength, not a weakness. They are entitled because they have never been told ‘no’ in a way that stuck. They are lost because
Final Thoughts
Having covered the judiciary for years, what strikes me most is how the role of a judge is less about wielding absolute power and more about exercising profound restraint—a lonely act of balancing cold precedent against the messy, human need for justice. The courtroom is a stage where facts are contested and narratives clash, yet the judge’s true test lies not in choosing a side, but in ensuring that the process itself remains sacred, regardless of the verdict. Ultimately, a judge’s legacy isn’t written in the headlines of their most controversial cases, but in the quiet, cumulative trust they instill that the law is, in fact, a shield for the weak and a leash for the powerful.