Remembering two giants of judicial independence.

The federal judiciary has recently lost two champions of the concept of justice for all. The passings of Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. and Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. should, most importantly, remind us that unfettered, unintimidated, and unrelenting judicial independence can help facilitate great societal improvements.

From the moment of his birth to a domestic worker and a laborer, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. had no choice but to fight inequality and injustice. It was a fight he would pursue for his entire life. As an African American who possessed the signal attributes of humility and self-sacrifice, Judge Higginbotham determined early on that the tragedy of racism was encouraged by a legal profession and judiciary that were threatened and silenced by political expedience and social pressures.

In an eloquence heightened by his seemingly solitary presence, Judge Higginbotham exhorted today's lawyers to "consciously and constantly assess [their] values and goals in forging rules of law for the future," to "commit themselves to pursuing their moral visions," and to be "the legal architects who renovate the palace of justice and redesign the landscape of opportunity in our nation."

Judge Higginbotham was always a person of great distinction. When appointed commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, he was the youngest person ever to serve in that position. More important, he was the first African American to serve in any federal agency as a commissioner.

He served on the federal bench for almost 30 years, initially as the first black jurist in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and then as an associate and chief judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. His opinions, of which there are more than 650, attest to his gift of forceful articulation and his unquenchable thirst for justice.

But it was in cases and scholarly works dealing with the seemingly unattainable goal of universally accepted equality that Judge Higginbotham's fierce independence made its greatest mark. In a recent Harvard Law Review article, it was noted that his own encounters with racism taught him the urgency of the need to eradicate its vestiges and made him realize that this sense of urgency could not be quelled by judicial norms or social expectations. In the face of bitter criticisms, Judge Higginbotham was, throughout his life as a public servant, an independent drum major for justice and opportunity for all.

Born under much different circumstances--into a white farming family in Northwestern Alabama--Frank M. Johnson Jr. also possessed an uncompromising streak of independence as a jurist and became the federal judiciary's most influential, innovative, and controversial member. His reverence for the sanctity of the law was coupled with an uncanny understanding of the effect it had on the very people whose cases he considered.

Judge Johnson courageously applied the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education to order the desegregation of schools, colleges, parks, libraries, museums, restaurants, airports, and even the Alabama State Police. He issued critically important decisions allowing the unimpeded registration of black voters, striking down poll taxes, eviscerating laws barring women and African Americans from jury service, and expanding the rights of poor defendants to court-appointed counsel.

He demanded sweeping changes in Alabama's mental institutions and prisons so that patients and prisoners would have adequate living facilities, food, and medical care. After his ascendency to the Fifth Circuit and later to the Eleventh Circuit, he overturned a textbook ban in Alabama's public schools, observing that the books endorsed no values other than the salutary virtues of tolerance, self-respect, maturity, and self-reliance.

These two men were beacons of hope for those less fortunate. They walked independently as fair-minded jurists in the face of racial epithets, cross burnings, bomb threats, and ostracism from supposed pillars of society. Their steadfast independence as judges must be continuously promoted and celebrated. The public must be educated to value judicial independence so that the courts can continue to successfully wage the war against prejudice and mistreatment of all people.

We are saddened by the loss of these courageous and forthright free thinkers. It is appalling to speculate where this country would be without the fierce independence that was the hallmark of their careers. We, as lawyers, must strive to support all possible opportunities for further examples of such courage, wisdom, and fairness in the judiciary.

Judges Higginbotham and Johnson spoke not only for the oppressed, the denied, and the less fortunate, but by changing America for the better, they spoke for all of us.

With gratitude,