Panel of Contributors: A role model for judicial character Panel of Contributors: A role model for judicial character (May 18, 2005)

By Henry Organ

Over the last few years, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, who sits in the federal court's northern district of California, has admonished the state's prison system for its inhumane treatment of inmates.

His latest criticism was voiced this month, and pertained to the failure of the state to provide adequate medical care in these institutions.

I first met Judge Henderson in the late 1960s. He was assistant dean and taught at the Stanford Law School; and we were neighbors in the same apartment complex in East Palo Alto.

If my memory is correct, Judge Henderson did some of the original research on the legal issues involved in the incorporation of East Palo Alto. He was a dedicated, clinical legal educator, and this was further manifested in his involvement in the East Bayshore Neighborhood Legal Center, which served East Palo Alto and Belle Haven.

Judge Henderson, an African American, is quite relevant to the "nuclear" controversy regarding the confirmation of nominees for federal judgeships. One of the "nuclear" nominees is Janice Rogers Brown, also an African American. (Judge Brown currently sits on the California Supreme Court.) I do not have the competence to comment on her jurisprudence, but I do have standing to comment on some of the extra-legal issues her supporters put forth.

Too often, the proponents for ultra-conservative nominees of color (like Clarence Thomas and Brown) tout their having "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps," being born of "sharecropper parents," and so forth. These origins are highlighted, as if they are sufficient to guarantee them confirmation. Their achievements over adversity, with the sacrifice of their community of origin, are for naught -- if their moral compasses against man's inhumanity to man are misdirected.

I am pleased to say that Judge Henderson has demonstrated his opposition to man's inhumanity to man, even if that man is convicted. One can judge Thelton Henderson by his character, and his color. One need not be at the expense of the other.

Indeed, President Bush can and should seek nominees whose character and compass, irrespective of color, compare to the likes of Judge Thelton Henderson. Henry Organ is a member of the Almanac's Panel of Contributors who lives in Menlo Park .

E-mail a friend a link to this story.