The "audition trap" is the label law professor Josh Blackman gives to a familiar charge: that a judge's rulings are performances aimed at winning a higher office. In a recent Fifth Circuit concurrence, Judge James Ho endorsed that framing, citing Blackman's post. The underlying case involved a magistrate judge who agreed to an ex parte hearing after a lawyer hinted at political connections and pressure. Ho wrote that any judge who abuses his office to promote his own interests—including a desire for future appointment—has violated the judicial oath.
Blackman and Ho agree that the accusation is structurally irrefutable. Because no one can inspect a judge's private ambitions, any ruling can be characterized as auditioning. As Blackman puts it, the charge is a fact of life for judges with visible profiles, and the only response is to accept it. He notes that he and Ho are often themselves accused, and that the safest career strategy is to keep your head down and avoid controversy—yet that is not the same as judging well.
Blackman contrasts the cautious path with Antonin Scalia's 1986 speech to Attorney General Ed Meese, delivered days before President Reagan interviewed Scalia for the Supreme Court. Rather than flatter Meese, Scalia publicly disagreed with his "original intent" framework, arguing for "original public meaning" instead. Meese's aide wrote "Stipulated" on a name tent and placed it on the podium—an anecdote Blackman uses to argue that risk-taking, not auditioning, is what made Scalia's career. The piece is an opinion essay, so its claims are Blackman's, but the underlying judicial ethics concern is concrete.