Amestoy No Title

• Jurisdiction: Vermont,United States
• Citation: Vol. 2002 No. 06
• Publication year: 2002

Vermont Bar Journal 2002.

June 2002. Amestoy No Title

SPEECH TO VERMONT BAR ASSOCIATION ON THE STATE OF THE JUDICIARY MARCH 8, 2002

Chief Justice Jeffrey L. Amestoy

In September 1999 the Commission on the Future of Vermont's Justice System issued its Report. I began the final portion of that Report - entitled "Into the Future" as follows:

The war in Kosovo. The killings at Columbine High School. . . . Each triggers indelible images. All have consequences beyond the event. None had occurred when this Commission began its work in June 1998. Reminders - if any are needed - that what is on no one's mind today may be on everyone's mind tomorrow. (Fn1)

It took no particular power of insight to observe "that what is on no one's mind today may be on everyone's mind tomorrow."(Fn2) But who among us contemplated an event that two years later would literally change the world - and each of us.

If not all of us have reexamined our perception of fate or our sense of vulnerability, certainly none of us will ever again hear the date September 11th without indelible images being triggered.

Somewhere between one's acceptance of fate and one's awareness of vulnerability is the life each of us lives - and in a broader context is the life a society chooses to create. It is that life and the role that law can play in it that I briefly address today.

Of all the heartbreaking stories of September 11, surely none was more tragic than that of Pentagon analyst Bryan Jack. First assumed to be among the missing in the ruins of the Pentagon where over two dozen of his fellow analysts had died, it was then determined that he had been assigned to fly to California on the 11th. Mr. Jack never made it. He was on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon.

Fate and vulnerability are not topics to which most Americans have given much thought. To the extent that it can be said there is a national character, I think it fair to ascribe to our society a belief that our destiny is chosen not fated, and further, that if we are not invincible we are largely untouchable.

Much of the world holds a different view. In John O'Hara's novel Appointment in Samarra, he retells a story from the Middle East.

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to the market place and in a little while the servant returned, white and trembling.

"Master," he said "just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by someone in the crowd and when I turned I saw that it was Death that jostled me. He looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now, lend me your horse and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and Death will not find me."

The merchant lent him his horse and the servant rode away as fast as he could flee.

Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw Death standing in the crowd and the merchant said: "Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?"

"That was not a threatening gesture" said Death, "it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I have an...