Belief in a Better Future

At the Rose Cafe last week, Judge Scott Miller talked about his path to where he is now. His first job right out of Cornell Law School was to defend an African American man who was the passenger in a car that had been pulled aside for an extremely petty offense; however, was found to be in the possession of firearms without a license. Though Scott Miller was told by the judge that he would be sure to lose and that it would be a valuable first case for him to learn from, and though even he himself didn’t think that he could help his defendant, he still tried to the best of his ability. He was able to find an obscure law that stated that his client had done nothing wrong given that he had only just gained possession of the arms, as well as convince the initially uninterested and skeptical jury. I found his belief of the good of the American justice system and his strong feelings of his role in it as someone who simply follows the rules and carries out his duties to be refreshing and good to hear in today’s uncertain world. I also found his thoughts on how as young people, right now we should be glad that we have something to fight for because we have the knowledge to do so. And I found it reassuring when he made the comparison of the current chaos in politics to the American Revolution which ended in independence of our country and to the Civil War which ended in the abolishment of slavery. It was nice to think that perhaps right now is simply the madness before a progressive movement for the better, something to wake us all up and make us vote and do our parts in changing the world.

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