I have to say that I think the conversation Judge Miller led was my favorite Rose Café yet. It was both inspiring and reassuring to know that there are government leaders out there with an unwavering dedication to county’s promise of equal protection under the law for all persons and a willingness to offer an impartial, discerning check of power when this promise is not being delivered. What is more, it was so good to hear that someone “on the inside”—who is intimately familiar with how change is accomplished—has so much hope for the future of America. In times of great uncertainty and division, this message of hope needs to be heard.

Also, I really appreciated how Judge Miller pointed out that there is good in everyone. I interned at the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office two summers ago, and after sitting through trials and sentencings, it quickly becomes evident that it is incredibly easy to define someone by one moment and make a judgment about how that moment should affect the rest of his or her life. Equally, though, when you take a step back and make a point to focus on the factors that lead up to that moment or caused that moment to unfold the way it did, the judgment can turn to understanding with less effort than you may assume. Understanding why someone did something or ended up in a particular situation is crucially important, not because it will always change the conclusion to which the judgment points, but rather, because understanding why someone did something is often necessary, or at least extremely helpful, to figuring out how to stop either someone else from doing that same thing or preventing the same person from doing it again.

Also, I found Judge Miller’s discussion about jury selection fascinating. Again, it sort of points to the fact people with certain experiences and social characteristics are predisposed to be more understanding of or more critical towards a person depending on this person’s own experiences and social characteristics. Sort of an unexpected takeaway I took from Judge Miller’s discussion was how important it is to recognize what influences our own snap judgments so that we can remove our own biases and hear the stories of other people, and this process of understanding, it seems, can actually lead to a more accurate, more impartial judgment in the end.