“Did not contact the police chief privately to demand punishment.”
“Did not use my chambers to investigate.”
“Why?”
A judge answered:
“Separation of roles.”
“Exactly.”
She looked around.
“When somebody harms you personally, the temptation is to believe your certainty about the harm makes you trustworthy about everything that follows.”
“It does not.”
She paused.
“You can be completely right that you were wronged and still be wrong about motive, scope, remedy, or punishment.”
Pens moved.
She continued:
“That is why process matters most when you are certain.”
That line stayed.
Years later, one of those judges used it in a completely different context involving contempt proceedings.
The lesson moved.
The Black judge became chief judge of her circuit in her sixties.
No one mentioned the taillight at her investiture.
She was grateful.
Her career had grown larger than one morning.
Her mother had died by then.
The empty seat in the front row hurt.
After the ceremony, her niece—now an attorney—approached.
“I brought something.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what.”
“I know your face.”
The niece produced a small red plastic fragment inside a clear evidence-style bag.
The judge stared.
“What is that?”
“Relax. It’s not the real taillight.”
The judge exhaled.
“It’s a replica.”
“Why?”
“Gift.”
“Terrible.”
Her niece laughed.
Then handed her the actual gift.
A fountain pen.
Engraved only with:
CHANGE THE CERTAINTY.
The judge stopped smiling.
That was from her letter to the former officer.
She had shown the niece years earlier.
The judge touched the engraving.
“Better.”
“I know.”
She used the pen for opinions until it ran dry.
Then refilled it.
Again and again.
The former officer died before she did.
Heart attack in his late sixties.
His daughter wrote to her.
The judge had never met the daughter.
The letter said:
My father kept your reply in his desk. He would read one sentence before every training class: “When reality contradicts your certainty, change the certainty—not reality.” I thought you should know.
The judge sat in chambers for a long time.
Then wrote back: