Scott at Powerline posted this tribute from Justice George Nicholson of California’s Third Apellate District Court of Appeal to Presiding Judge Robert K. Puglia, who recently passed away. Included in the account is the moving and personal eulogy that was delivered at his funeral by California Supreme Justice Janice Rogers Brown, whose District Court nomination will soon be debated in the U.S. Senate. Her words help us know the man – and her – so much better, and is well worth reading.
Scott’s post also includes the famous “Freedom Is Not Free” speech Justice Puglia gave to the San Joaquin County Bar Association, the last paragraph I’ve excerpted here:
The rule of law relies on a fragile consensus, which remarkably has endured and allowed us, uniquely among the nations of the world, to live as free people for more than 200 years. It is the guarantor of our freedoms. It emits the glow that illuminates the shining city on the hill, the glow that is never so brilliant as when contrasted to the ominous shadows cast by the brutal tyrannies which have threatened our national existence in this century. More than anything else, the rule of law is at the heart of American exceptionalism. That is the unique place that America occupies among the community of nations.
If your faith in our judicial system and its judges has been diminished by the political circuses of late, reading the Powerline post can be very encouraging.
