The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida marked its 50th anniversary in 2012.
In recognition of the golden anniversary, the district commissioned James Denham, professor of history and director of the Lawton M. Chiles Jr. Center for Florida History at Florida Southern College, to write a book detailing the court’s history, beginning with its inception in 1962.
Denham said it took five years to research and write “Fifty Years of Justice: A History of the US. District Court for the Middle District of Florida,” published by University Press of Florida.
The story is told through the judges, lawyers and litigants who were part of the court’s first five decades.
“I wanted to write a readable history of all facets of the court,” Denham said.
The court’s Bench Bar Committee presented Thursday a panel discussion of one of the cases included in the book, United States v. Karl T. Waldon.
Panelists included U.S. District Senior Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr., who was presiding judge when the case went to trial in 2002; U.S. Magistrate Judge James Klindt, who was the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Waldon; and defense attorney A. Russell Smith.
Waldon was an officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. He and two other officers were charged in a 26-count indictment on charges including robbery, drug trafficking, violation of civil rights and murder.
The other defendants negotiated plea deals in exchange for their testimony. Waldon remains in federal prison in Louisiana, serving three life sentences, said U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan, who in 2002 was the U.S. Magistrate Judge assigned to the case.
“It’s a fascinating tale of police corruption,” Corrigan said.
Denham’s research in writing the book was part of the reason the court started a project that began with historic displays in the middle district’s five courthouses and continued with a permanent historical archive in the Orlando Division that is being digitized to serve as an online resource, said U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard, chair of the Bench Bar Committee.
The book is available at Chamblin’s Uptown Bookstore and Café.
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