Bob Ewegen

A constellation of Colorado’s legal and political stars gathered Thursday to dedicate a $258 million monument to justice named after a former governor who sacrificed his political career rather than betray the rule of law.

Justice isn’t always blind — sometimes, it’s kind.

That was the message projected Thursday by U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic ever named to the nation’s highest court and only the third woman to serve on the tribunal.

The cataract of special interest money released by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United, decision has subjected Americans to a staggering assault of negative advertising and character assassination. But candidates for District Attorney in the 18th Judicial District offered an island of civility in this river of vilification on Sept. 26 when they faced off at the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.

It’s a fine and righteous thing to honor past heroes of conscience such as former Gov. Ralph L. Carr, whose name will adorn Colorado’s new state judicial complex. But Denver Manager of Safety Alex Martinez believes it’s even more important to look into the future and ask what our grandchildren will think about the stands we are now taking on today’s burning issues of conscience — at a time when their moral dimensions may not be quite as clear.

For ninety years after it achieved statehood in 1876, Colorado elected its judges in partisan elections. As a result, mining and other business interests had so much clout in the courtroom on high profile cases that historian Page Smith lumped the judiciary in with the corrupt executive and legislative branches in labeling Colorado’s state government “a wholly owned subsidiary of the Rockefellers and Guggenheims.”

It’s not every day that the usually courtly Justice Greg Hobbs provokes his learned colleague on the Colorado Supreme Court, Justice Nancy Rice, to figuratively blow her top — while a distinguished audience of judges and attorneys bursts into rollicking laughter and appreciative applause.

While other states have been rocked by scandals involving their judicial branch, Coloradans celebrate Law Day in 2011 knowing that our time-tested merit selection, performance evaluation and retention election system of selecting judges is lauded by national experts as ensuring excellence and impartiality in our courts.