Moroni comments, as part of his condemnation, that “ye could sit upon your thrones.” That is an interesting phrase, particularly in light of the Reign of the Judges. Why “throne,” and especially, why “thrones” in the plural?
Although there is one Chief Judge over all the land, we have seen that each separate land associated with a city had their own Chief Judge for that city and its beholden lands. Thus, there are “thrones” because there is more than one judge. However, why use a term that is usually associated with the symbolic seat of a king? Part of the answer lies in the fact that there is only a partial difference between the monarchy and the Reign of the Judges. The positions of the judges are as hereditary as the right of kingship had been. Thus, the symbol of visible authority of the Chief Judge might not have been so different from that of the king.
Another possibility, if we see the Book of Mormon in a Mesoamerican setting, is that the seat of the ruler was also symbolic, even when it was not elaborate. The texts speak of the “seating” of a king, and in the case of the Nephites, would have been the seating of the judge. Thus, the seat would still be an important symbol of power, and as such be appropriately translated as throne, even though the idea of a throne might conjure more elaborate images than the Nephite reality most likely had been.