Consider the following excerpt from the article: 

-- Friedman also allowed into evidence the fact that the women received Social Security disability benefits, and that Caroline Burley had once sued a hotel after falling. At the same time, he refused to allow into evidence the disciplinary records of the agents named on the DEA report, or whether any of them had been named in previous lawsuits. In other words, the jury could hear information about the two women's past that could possibly discredit them, but not any information about the pasts of the DEA agents.

This is a de facto title of nobility rendered by an act of a judge.

DC Treybil