OUR RUDE and crude president, Donald J. Trump, gets it right now and again, when he’s not muddying his message with tweets against small-time players and the media, but we repeat ourselves. His nominations at all levels have been fine picks, mostly. Look at his outstanding Cabinet, which might be the best group put together since a president named Reagan picked his help. The current president also got good press after he nominated a fine jurist named Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States. And now President Trump is continuing one of the few bright parts of his administration—that is, nominations—by picking Cody Hiland of Arkansas to become the next U.S. Attorney for the state’s eastern district.
Counselor Hiland earned his spurs long ago, perhaps most notably as the prosecutor who finally succeeded in shutting down a notorious speed trap at Damascus, Ark.—a tiny town (pop. 383, according to the last Census) that long has produced more bad news than it can consume locally. Like the Titan missile explosion that almost took all of Arkansas with it when it went up in smoke back in 1980. But now there’s light on the road to Damascus—for Cody Hiland has been nominated as U.S. Attorney, which is unadulterated good news. No wonder his nomination was promptly applauded by both both this state’s U.S. senators.
“Cody is an excellent choice,” quoth John Boozman, the state’s senior senator, while Tom Cotton, its junior senator, seconded the motion: “J. Cody Hiland is the absolute best choice for this position, and I commend the president for making this appointment. [Counselor Hiland] is well respected both among his colleagues and in the community at large. He has extensive experience in the law, which he will put to good use for the people of Arkansas.”
Senator Cotton’s reference to the new appointee’s extensive experience surely includes the many political defeats Cody Hiland encountered en route to his latest, prestigious appointment. Like another politician named Lincoln before him, Mr. Hiland has been educated by that best of teachers, defeat. For who has ever learned anything from just rehearsing his successes? The best of us learn from our defeats, including what may be the most valuable lesson of all: Never, never, never give up.
Those of us who have followed Cody Hiland’s career with attention and admiration should know by now that he’s not about to throw in the towel however many blows he may have to absorb. It was just early last year that he ran for the state’s Court of Appeals and lost. A decade before that, in 2006, he ran for state representative and lost. Regularly knocked down, he’s never stayed down.
But the most impressive thing about Cody Hiland, Esq., isn’t the fights he has won or lost or drawn, but that throughout he’s stuck to his integrity as an officer of the court and as a man. His duty as a prosecutor, he once said, “is not to win at all costs. My job is to seek justice. It’s not about what you have to do to get a conviction, it’s about doing the right thing and sometimes that’s dropping the case.” It’s a philosophy that you’ll not find in every single prosecuting attorney. Those of us who’ve covered the courts will note that there are some prosecutors who’d rather go before the voters at election time with a high conviction rate, if a low conscience. It’s a pleasure to hear a prosecutor talk about justice, even if that means dropping a case.
ALL OF THAT education in the school of hard knocks, and all of his achievements, whether in victory or defeat, can be cited as part of Cody Hiland’s impressive resume dating back to his graduation from the University of Central Arkansas and then from the University of Arkansas’ law school in Little Rock. Cody Hiland has been a credit to all those institutions, just as he surely will be once—Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise—he’s confirmed as the next U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Here’s hoping this appointment won’t be the last honor in this public servant’s career, for he’s only 45. Or as Oliver Wendell Holmes the younger was reputed to have said when, walking down a Washington street at the age of 92, he and a colleague on the Supreme Court—The Hon. Louis D. Brandeisencountered a comely lass. “Ah,” exclaimed Mr. Justice Holmes, “to be 80 again!”
May this state’s own Cody Hiland have only begun a long and intellectually virile career. Old-timers who may not be around to see what further peaks this relatively young man will climb can only congratulate him on his latest assignment and wish him and the state many happy returns.