Keel Hunt, noted journalist and author, delivers another fascinating book on Southern political history with the publication of A Sense of Justice: Judge Gilbert S. Merritt and His Times.¹ It is a must-read for lawyers, judges and anyone with an interest in politics.

It is tempting to think of the accomplished life and distinguished career of the Hon. Gilbert S. Merritt, longtime judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, as indicative of a bygone era marked by an evenhanded devotion to the law and a persistent empathy to the individuals affected by it. Judge Merritt’s civility and willingness to engage with the viewpoints of others seems, by the standard of our polarized times, outdated. But Judge Merritt’s story makes plain that his life cannot be confined to the past. Rather, the traits that form the late judge’s towering legacy are as attainable and vital today as they were in Judge Merritt’s time. Toward the end of his life, Judge Merritt acknowledged as much by noting that the continuance of our democracy depends upon the idea “that we can do better.” Indeed, Hunt describes Judge Merritt’s life as a monument to constant improvement — of himself, of our society and of our concept of justice.

For Judge Merritt, learning was a lifelong endeavor, starting with his formal education at Castle Heights Military Academy, Yale and Vanderbilt, and continuing throughout his roles as a U.S. Attorney and Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge. But the most striking example of this growth comes from his personal life. Judge Merritt faced devastating tragedy — at 19, his father died in a plane crash, and, when he was 32, he lost his wife and the mother of his three young children to suicide. Yet Judge Merritt never gave into despair. Instead, he leaned into his family and colleagues, creating a community of individuals that universally revered him for his patience, kindness and loyalty. Throughout the book, we meet numerous individuals, each invariably “overcome by feelings of love and respect for a friend.” In the words of John M. Seigenthaler, son of Judge Merritt’s longtime friend and confidant John L. Seigenthaler, “Judge Merritt made objectivity impossible.”

Judge Merritt’s passion for others extended well beyond those in his orbit. Hunt expertly weaves Judge Merritt’s story into the broader context of Tennessee politics in the 1960s and 70s. Judge Merritt, along with his tight-knit circle of friends, cared deeply about others and took concrete action to advance the cause of civil rights. He advocated for the integration of the Nashville Bar Association, forcefully asking: “How can we hold up the symbol of our profession — a blindfolded lady with a pair of scales — and say to the world that we stand for ‘equal justice for all,’ and then tell a fellow lawyer that we will not allow him in our professional organization because he is Black, because his skin is not white like ours?”

In his role as a young U.S. Attorney in the late 1960s, a time when the stain of segregation remained, Judge Merritt hired Carlton Petway Sr. as the first African American assistant U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee. He also hired Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey as the first woman to be an assistant U.S. attorney in Nashville. Judge Daughtrey, a trailblazer for women in the legal profession who served on the Tennessee Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, notes that Judge Merritt “is the hero in my memoir.” In an era when the very concept of equality divided the state and the nation, Judge Merritt stood firmly in his belief that our society left no room for unequal treatment.

Hunt’s biography contains many interviews with Judge Merritt’s fellow judges, law clerks and other colleagues who paint the picture of a man eager to examine the rule of law rather than to simply apply it. Judge Merritt cared deeply about the mechanics of justice, being deeply enamored and eager to converse with anyone about legal philosophy. He applied the law fairly and impartially, even when doing so was not personally expedient. His opposition to the deportation of John Demjanjuk in the early 1990s caused enough of a political firestorm to cost him a nomination to the United States Supreme Court, but the decision affirmed his commitment to the law’s promise of due process for all. Despite “every one of [his friends saying] he shouldn’t do it, that it could sink his chances for the Supreme Court,” he did “what he thought was right.”

Of course, judges have their own views on the law, and there really is no such thing as a purely objective jurist. Judge Merritt was no different. He abhorred capital punishment, questioned the development of Second Amendment jurisprudence and urged his contemporaries to “enhance equal justice under law and underline ‘equal.’” But the defining trait of his jurisprudence was his ability to consider arguments that conflicted with his own beliefs. One law clerk describes him as “super-collegial,” refusing to interrupt lawyers during oral argument, even when he disagreed. Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, a colleague of Judge Merritt’s on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, succinctly captures this quality:

[Judge Merritt] had a little bit of the Renaissance person in him: broad interests, broad ideas, broad goals. I think we are becoming narrower as a society. The more you narrow, either the group you run with or the ideas you lose, the fewer options you have. Gil was a guy that did not have to be narrow. He could live with the tension between all those ideas and chart a path that was a way to go forward. I think he had both government and community at heart.

Hunt’s book can certainly be read as a biography, which is, by nature, an account of the past, a retelling of the towering accomplishments and legacy of one of the finest legal minds Tennessee has ever seen. But A Sense of Justice can just as easily be read as a roadmap for the future of our profession and our society. The attributes that defined Judge Merritt — his civility, patience and thoughtfulness — are just as practicable and necessary today as they were before, and he would be the first to tell you so. Judge Merritt’s life reminds us “that we are creating the history of our nation as much today as in the beginning.” In that sense, few others have inspired such optimism for the future. |||

Justice Sharon G. Lee has served on the Tennessee Supreme Court since 2009. She served as Chief Justice from 2014 to 2016. She graduated with honors from the University of Tennessee College of Business and the University of Tennessee College of Law. Tyler Ring serves as Law Clerk to Justice Lee. He is an honors graduate of the University of Tennessee and the University of Tennessee College of Law.

NOTE

1. See Keel Hunt, The Family Business: How Ingram Transformed the World of Books (2021); Keel Hunt, Crossing the Aisle: How Bipartisanship Brought Tennessee to the 21st Century and Could Save America (2018); Keel Hunt, Coup: The Day the Democrats Ousted Their Governor, Put Republican Lamar Alexander in Office Early, and Stopped a Pardon Scandal (2013).