I have had a very satisfying 57-year legal career — with a few more to come, I hope. I was a prosecutor who sent a number of murderers to the penitentiary, I served an East African country as a Peace Corps volunteer, and I tried cases on behalf of poor people as a legal aid lawyer in Chicago, where I later served for many years as the Cook County public guardian. At the age of 32, I argued and prevailed in a landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court. For the past 17 years, I’ve been a judge.
But based on positions taken recently by both major political parties, I guess I am forced to apologize for being a criminal defense attorney. During those years, I successfully represented at least seven people charged with murder.
Recently, Republicans attempted to eviscerate the reputation of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson by pointing out that she had the temerity to represent people charged with crimes. The other day, I watched a commercial on television in which the other party attacks a candidate running for office in Illinois because he also represented people whom the state had charged with various criminal offenses.
