In praise of Wisdom

As with the state appeals courts in the Louisiana system, there is a rarified atmosphere in the building that houses the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a sense that whatever goes on in this place concerns matters of the greatest importance.

In the courtroom where arguments on the same-sex marriage bans in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, turquoise drapes are framed by windows whose sashes are Mississippi pine, with the other lumber used for trim of Louisiana gum.

The courtroom was packed on Friday, primarily with supporters of the right to marry for gay couples, with the litigants sitting mostly in the front row. Reporters sat several rows back.

When the three judges hearing the case entered they were preceded by a single loud knock and an announcement by a bailiff, and the proceedings began.

Different groups associated with different cases took turns occupying the seats. When the Louisiana case was done the seats filled up with Mississippi litigants and supporters; the litigants and supporters from Texas were next, and when that case was done being heard everyone poured out of the courthouse, like school students being released for the day from their classes.

It is an awesome thing to observe, this example of the living law.

There in the courtroom what occurred was a contest between three states – with all of their power – and citizens of those states who had a grievance.

It doesn’t matter which side of this debate one takes. The idea that citizens can come before judges with a complaint against the very entity that governs them, that the attorneys for both sides are given equal footing, and that the litigants can later express optimism, and a sense that the system was fair to them in its hearing process, can cause the heart to beat jut a little more quickly.

The courthouse itself is an amazing structure, inside and out. Completed in 1915, the Italian Renaissance Revival building has been called “the most important public building of the New South.”

The fagade is America-made, of white marble from Cherokee, Georgia. A cornice on the building is inscribed with the names of former U.S. Supreme Court justices.

It is on top of the building that one sees one of its most striking features, four 12-foot high copper and bronze sculptures of female figures, muses of a sort, one called History, the other Agriculture, another Industry and, also, one called “Arts.”

One of the most significant features of the building – certainly to the people who gathered there last week to have their grievances heard – is the inscription bearing its name.

In 1993 the structure was named the “John Minor Wisdom” courthouse; Appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957, Wisdom was a key voice in opinions given on some of the most important civil rights cases to be heard in the South after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision desegregating schools, Brown vs. Board of Education, serving until his death in 1999.

At the time of his appointment, the court covered more states; in addition to Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, the Fifth Circuit also handled appeals from district courts in Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

Despite Brown’s sweeping mandate, Southern states did not readily accept desegregation and decisions from the Fifth Circuit had a lot to do with mandating them to follow what became the

Law of the land. Voting rights and desegregation of the University of Mississippi were among the more important cases Wisdom handled with his judicial brethren, whose decisions were often split but usually came down in favor of change.

Whether past discrimination on the basis of race is a parallel for consideration in the marriage equality debate is up for debate. Certainly many African-American clergymen have suggested that comparisons are not proper.

But to some of the litigants present Friday the similarities are clear.

Derek Penton-Robicheaux of New Orleans, husband of Jon Penton-Robichaux of Bourg, said he was taking particular encouragement from the Wisdom legacy.

“If you step outside and look at the name that is on that building, the building itself, the legacy and what he did for civil rights in itself, we hope that these judges follow in the steps of John Minor Wisdom,” he said.

During Friday’s arguments one of the judges, Patrick Higginbotham gave an indication of how he might stand in that regard, after a young attorney representing Mississippi concluded his presentation with words that indicated Mississippi might one day, through its electorate, change its mind about gay marriage.

“Those words,” Higginbotham mused, “will Mississippi change its mind, have resonated in these halls before.”

BAYOUSIDE