'No matter who you are, you deserve to be heard'

By Marlene Quaroni - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | Judge Marcia Cooke has received the 2021 Lex Christi, Lex Amoris (law of Christ, law of love) award for her practice of meeting God in the people she encounters.

“She receives this award not only for her exemplary professional achievements. She receives it for her practice of the theology of encounter,” said Randy McGrorty, executive director of Catholic Legal Services, the agency that received last year’s award.

The Miami Catholic Lawyers Guild presented the award at their annual Red Mass, celebrated Oct. 25, 2021 at Gesu Church in downtown Miami.

“Judge Cooke expressed this theology eloquently to me by quoting the Joan Osborn song,” McGrorty said, reciting some of its lyrics: “What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, tryin’ to make his way home?”

Judge Cooke sees God in the ordinary Joe, on the bus or in her courtroom, McGrorty said. “And, by the way, several lawyers who have appeared before her told me that when they enter her courtroom, there is no question who is driving the bus,” he noted.

The Red Mass is a historical tradition within the Catholic Church dating back to the 13th century, when it officially opened the term of the court for most European countries. The celebrant, government officials, lawyers and judges would proceed into a church clothed in red vestments or garments, signifying the fire of the Holy Spirit guiding all those engaged in pursuing justice through the courts or government.

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Judge Cooke attended Catholic high school. Coincidentally, her home parish in Detroit was named Gesu. She graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Foreign Service in 1975 and received her law degree from Wayne State Law School in Detroit in 1977.

“I had wanted to become a diplomat before I chose to become an attorney,” she said of her foreign service degree.

Judge Cooke’s experience is extensive. In Michigan, she became a staff attorney for Neighborhood Legal Services and then a deputy public defender for the Legal Aid and Public Defender’s Office; served as assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan; went into private practice; and became a U.S. magistrate judge for the Eastern District of Michigan.

In 1992, she relocated to Florida, where she served as director of professional development and training in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida. She was chief inspector general for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s office. She became an assistant county attorney in 2002. President George W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 2003 and the Senate confirmed her in 2004. She is the first black female federal judge in Florida. She is also an adjunct professor at St. Thomas University Law School in Miami Gardens.

“I have always wanted to be the type of judge that I wanted to go before,” she said. “No matter who you are you deserve to be heard.”

Archbishop Thomas Wenski, main celebrant for the Red Mass, said that during these times legal professionals have more reason to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit.

“Rather than an era of change, our age is a change of an era,” he said. “We sense that our country, our culture, indeed our entire world is undergoing a transformation that is as unprecedented as it is unpredictable. Implicit in this change of an era is a crisis of values and of leadership. Behind the anger and frustration of many is simply fear.”

The Holy Spirit can inspire legal professionals to be more God-like in their work, said Frank Sexton, Jr., president of the Miami Catholic Lawyers Guild.

“The gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, courage, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord are all things that you would want in a lawyer, judge or government official,” he said.