Grand Marais’ courtroom is given a mention in a new book, Representing Justice,
which was featured in a Dec. 15 New York
Times
book review.
Yale Law School professors Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis wrote the book, which is described as “an unusual new book”—an academic treatise on threats to the modern judiciary that doubles as an obsessive’s tour of Western art through the lens of the law.
While the book includes several examples of the abstract representations of justice that modernism has bequeathed, one prominent display was discovered by the authors on a trip to speak at a conference in Minnesota. They “drove by the courthouse in Grand Marais, a small town 110 miles north of Duluth and stopped, finding a probation officer inside. Explaining our interest in courthouses and their iconography, we asked if we might take a look around. When we inquired what (if any) icons of justice were displayed, he did not hesitate to bring us to the courtroom on the second floor, a modestly proportioned room with a judge’s bench, flags and computers.”
“On one wall hung a memorial to a dedicated local lawyer, James A. Sommerness, who had worked as a public defender in the court for more than 20 years. Instead of his portrait, the court had framed the battered corduroy jacket the lawyer had always worn while arguing cases, a humble monument to the grand ideal of public justice for everyone. We’ve seen a lot of representations of justice over the years,” Resnik said, “but that one will always be pretty hard to top.”
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