MY CONTRIBUTION TO CIVIL RIGHTS:
Aug 13, 1995OUTCOME: Won on Appeal
As I celebrate my 33rd year as a licensed Florida attorney, I find myself reflecting on what kind of contributions I have made to my chosen profession and society in general. While I certainly could ha ... ve done much more, I am very proud of one fascinating case that I handled in the early 1990’s. This is the story of Powell vs. Allstate Ins. Co. 652 So.2d 354 (Fla. 1995). Mr. and Mrs. Powell were of Jamaican ancestry. They were dark-skinned U.S. citizens. The all-white, six-member jury returned a verdict after 8 hours of deliberations which was for approximately $10,000.00, considerably less than the amount I had asked for in my closing arguments. One of the six jurors that decided the Powell case called me and was very emotional. She explained that she could not remain quiet about what had transpired during the jury deliberations. She explained in exasperating detail how the Foreman and other jurors were consistently making inappropriate racial jokes and using the N-word during their open discussions. My brave juror described how one juror compared Mr. Powell to a “chimpanzee” and the other jurors howled with laughter. A joke was shared with the group explaining how a driver scores more points for hitting a black pedestrian vs. a white one. I recall listening to this distressed juror tell her story and feeling as if I was somehow transported back to the deep South of the 1950’s. In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth DCA agreed with me and ordered a full, comprehensive interview of all jurors with Judge Jackson to thereafter determine if a new trial should be ordered based on his interpretation of these interviews. The Powells and I felt vindicated by this enlightened decision but our satisfaction was short-lived. Shortly after the decision by the Fifth DCA, while the time for Allstate to appeal was still available, Judge Jackson wrote an unsolicited letter to the esteemed three-judge panel that had ruled in our favor urging them to revisit the law and reconsider their decision. Judge Jackson was clearly unhappy with their decision to overturn his earlier decision denying further jury inquiry. Remarkably, in a 5-4 Decision, the Fifth decided to affirm the original Judge Jackson Order denying the Powells a full panel interview of the remaining jurors and/or their request for a new trial. Once again, the Powells and I found ourselves without any chance of obtaining a new trial, hopefully with a six-member jury which did not harbor such base and ugly prejudices. Remarkably, the Florida Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction to decide the Powell case. Extensive brief-writing was ordered and followed by the Court scheduling Oral Arguments. The Associated Press picked up on the story and suddenly there was both nationwide and worldwide attention to my case. In the weeks leading up to Oral Arguments in Tallahassee, Florida, newspapers all over the country and in Europe were writing stories about this case of outrageous racial injustice. Suddenly, I was in the middle of my own “15-minutes” of fame. I was interviewed extensively by newspapers all around the country. I was appearing on local T.V. shows for panel discussions. The Powell’s story was given a lengthy segment on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and I was interviewed “live” on The Morning Show by Paula Zahn. For reasons I do not fully understand even today, the country was captivated by this case. When the Florida Bar Journal magazine interviewed Judge Anstead at the time of his retirement, he identified the Powell case as one of his most cherished cases. The magazine quoted Anstead as saying, “here we are still fighting that battle in the beginning of the 21st century. But how important that is to be able to say that in a court opinion that contrasts sharply with some of those opinions we had to apologize for in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. What an incredible privilege of this court to have that opportunity.”
