Bush to tap new justice after interviews

Five nominees, including a Hispanic lawyer from Miami and an appeals court judge from Tampa, vie for a seat on the state Supreme Court.

By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 1, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- Chris Altenbernd considered becoming a minister. But as a college student in 1969, he walked into a courtroom in Mississippi and was so shocked by what he saw that he became a lawyer instead.

He watched as a black man in a DUI case stood before a white judge who ridiculed him and sent him to prison as a repeat offender, based solely on the man's familiar-sounding last name.

Suddenly, a lawyer stood up and insisted the man's fingerprints be checked against the earlier case. Sure enough, the prints didn't match and the man didn't go to prison. Altenbernd was moved by the show of courage by a white lawyer in the Deep South who fearlessly sought justice for a black man.

"It was a life-altering experience," said Altenbernd, who soon enrolled in Harvard Law School.

Altenbernd tells the story in his job application for what could be another life-altering experience: Today, he and four other finalists for the state Supreme Court will sit down for one-on-one interviews with Gov. Jeb Bush, who will choose one of them.

The four others submitted by a nominating commission are Kenneth Bell, 46, a circuit judge in Pensacola; Raoul Cantero, 41, an appellate lawyer with Adorno & Zeder in Miami; and a pair of Tallahassee-based appeals court judges, Philip Padovano, 55, and Peter Webster, 53.

Bush will pick one to replace the courtly, bow-tied Major Harding, who is retiring Aug. 31. The seven-member court reviews every death sentence, the constitutionality of state laws, proposed constitutional amendments and legislative redistricting plans, and disciplines wayward lawyers and judges.

This is the second time Altenbernd has been a finalist. In 1998, Bush and outgoing Gov. Lawton Chiles jointly selected Peggy Quince, who became the court's first African-American woman.

Cantero is seen as the favorite, though he is the only finalist with no judicial experience. One reason is that he would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in a state where Hispanics now outnumber African-Americans.

Born in Madrid to Cuban parents, Cantero is a grandson of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was ousted from power by Fidel Castro in 1959.

He is the most controversial nominee. As a young associate at Adorno & Zeder in the late '80s, a few years out of Harvard Law School, Cantero was part of a legal team that defended Orlando Bosch, a militant anti-Castro extremist in Miami. Bosch was a hero to many exiles but he was labeled a terrorist by the FBI and U.S. immigration authorities for his purported ties to bombing raids on Cuba and other acts of violence.

Cantero's candidacy has triggered dozens of letters and e-mails to Bush from people with strong views for and against him.

Sofia Larraz of Coral Gables said a lawyer who "advocated for a terrorist" is unfit for the state's highest court. Mario Baro of Coral Gables said Cantero was "intellectually and morally of the highest caliber."

Cantero's critics include Enos Schera, a vice president of Citizens of Dade United, a group that favors stricter immigration policies and English as the official language of Miami-Dade, where nearly 60 percent of the population is Hispanic.

Schera is circulating an audiotape of Cantero on WNWS, a Miami talk radio station, in 1989, in which Cantero called Bosch a "Cuban patriot." Cantero also said that while Bosch did fire a bazooka at a Polish freighter docked in Miami -- one of the acts that earned Bosch the label of terrorist -- "it was a political statement. It didn't hurt anybody and it didn't cause any damage."

Bosch was sentenced to 10 years in prison for firing on the freighter and spent years in Venezuelan prisons for allegedly masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines jetliner that killed 73 people. He was acquitted three times and said he had nothing to do with it, but he supported it. "War is a competition of cruelties," Bosch said.

Former President George Bush, the governor's father, pardoned Bosch.

Cantero's past connections to Bosch are not likely to be a problem for Gov. Bush, who also championed Bosch's release while serving as campaign manager in 1989 for U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami, one of Bosch's leading defenders.

Bush declined to discuss the Bosch matter or whether Cantero or anyone else has an inside track on the appointment.

"I'm going to do the interviews. Everybody will be afforded the exact same treatment," Bush said.

Hispanics are a key Republican constituency and Bush has said he wants to make the bench more diverse. At 41, Cantero would be one of the youngest justices in state history, able to serve for nearly three decades, until the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Cantero did not respond to phone messages left at his law office.

Another lawyer said Cantero should not be criticized for representing Bosch.

"Every day, lawyers defend despicable people. They deserve representation. That isn't an endorsement by the attorney that their client's position is right or wrong," said Georgette Sosa Douglas, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who is active in Hispanic legal circles and Republican politics.

In 1993, after the killing of David Gunn, a Pensacola abortion doctor, Cantero wrote a letter to the editor of the Miami Herald protesting media portrayals of abortion opponents.

"The pro-life movement is not a fanatical contingent of violence-peddling, self-righteous radicals, as the media portray it," Cantero wrote. "It is an eclectic association of millions of people with firm convictions. ... All have different backgrounds, but share one common belief: Abortions kill children."

Filling a Supreme Court vacancy is one of the most important appointments a governor makes, and the impact can last for decades. Two years after Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles died, a court stocked with his choices played a crucial role in the epic 2000 battle for the White House.

Four justices infuriated Republicans across the country by ordering hand recounts of ballots, as Al Gore had wanted. That order was later reversed by a 5-4 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, securing George W. Bush's presidency by 537 votes.

The court is seen as generally moderate, but it is often closely divided, as seen by a string of 4-3 decisions on issues, including the ballot recount and the electric chair's constitutionality.

The vacancy is the first in nearly four years and comes at a time of tension between the courts and the two elected branches of government. Many conservative lawmakers say the court has been too assertive, writing law rather than interpreting it.

Some conservatives want Bush to pick a judge without close ties to the Florida Bar.

Rep. Fred Brummer, R-Apopka, who led an effort to lessen the Bar's influence over judicial nominating panels, says the "attorneys' union," as he calls the Bar, is an unelected group with too much power.

"We need to separate the influence of the Florida Bar Board of Governors out of our judicial branch," Brummer said. "It's a closed shop."

Bruce Rogow, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University and a Democrat, said any of the five would make an excellent justice, and that the favorite is likely to be the one who strikes a bond with Bush in the 30-minute closed-door interview.

"I don't think Bush can go wrong with anybody," Rogow said. "The question is, who does he feel most comfortable with when he meets these people?"

-- Times staff writer Curtis Krueger and researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

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