Your Verdict: A Judge's Reckoning With Law and Loss

In 1967, only four days after the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia, Jacqueline St. Joan married across the color line in Virginia-and lost her family as a result. What followed was a life shaped by the upheavals of the era: divorce, single motherhood, and deep involvement in the second wave of feminism, including relationships with both women and men.

In the 1980s, St. Joan became a judge in Denver, presiding over cases that exposed the fragility and resilience of ordinary lives. Her...