Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton delivered a State of the Judiciary address unlike any other one to the General Assembly Tuesday.

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic shutdown came three weeks after the chief’s annual address at the Capitol in 2020. The chief had a lot to review from the events of the past year— starting with the unthinkable task of naming the dead within the judiciary. As he did this, the members present from the Georgia House of Representatives and the Senate—masked and spaced apart—quietly rose and stayed on their feet until he finished that part of the speech.