Grace Under Pressure

                                   Grace Under Pressure

       I have watched the televised Senate hearings, of these last few days, attempting to confirm the President Biden’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown-Jackson. Through an exhaustive round of questions and answering, by the Senate Judiciary Committee, this cerebral, highly-qualified Federal Jurist has patiently answered some 500 questions,  about her record, her education and judicial temperament and philosophy.

         Most of the questions have been properly probative. The Senate Judiciary Committee is charged with recommending, to the full Senate, the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice, one who will serve the term for life. Every case that Justice Jackson has handled, and every opinion that she has written, is properly open for review and comment.

        In these last few Supreme Court Judicial nominations, the level of vitriolic, partisan rhetoric has both expanded and deteriorated. Consideration of the credentials of a prospective juror have taken a secondary place, to the need of one party, or the other, to deride and vilify the other, hoping to score points in the political lottery that is the electoral process.

          The admirable Justice Jackson has fielded all of these inquiries with a properly judicial demeanor. Patience, probity and a deliberative attitude characterize her. This is a woman of note, who by any ethical and experiential standards is eminently qualified to serve on the high court.

          Even in the face of biased, baiting attacks by Senators Cruse, Cotton, Hawley and Kennedy, the good Justice answered qualitatively and deliberately, negating their prompts. No Justice ever faced a sterner Jury or did so in such a calm and deliberative manner.

           Most of us citizens watched attentively, and listened  to her many instructions on the theory and practice of Judicial behavior, on the Supreme Court. When the Judge felt that she could not answer a question, because of a potential conflict with an issue or a case that might be later be heard  before her, she did so with frankness and aplomb, explaining the theory of Judicial restraint, when commenting on matters of the day, that she might later be forced to rule on.

           Justice Jackson is an African-American woman, from the deep South, a product of public schools like most of us, whose rise in the Judiciary must have faced innumerable hurdles, as she advanced among the ranks of the Judiciary, to the Federal Appeals Court Level. One can but only imagine the mental toughness that she must have developed in her ascent. Dealing with angry baiters, like Cruse and Hawley, must have seemed like just one more hurdle, that she had to experience and overcome.

           I don’t really know anything about this admirable woman, other than what I have observed watching the Senate hearings these last few days. But, I do know one thing. Had I the ability to vote to confirm Justice Jackson, as a Supreme Court Justice, I would do so readily, secure in the knowledge that I was advancing a person, steeped in the history of that which is Americana, and a valiant defender of the rights and protections of the Constitution and all that it stands for.

            Rock on Justice Jackson. We look forward to seeing you in action on the Supreme Court.

                                               -30-

                                        (539 words)

                                     Joseph Xavier Martin