by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
Waiting for U.S. District Judge Henry Adams in the office of his judicial assistant, Mary Oliver, where the muffled sounds from a sentencing are piped in through overhead speakers, you are struck, if not by the magnitude of the crimes that allegedly have been committed, then by the alacrity with which the presiding judge can move from felony employment discrimination to felony possession of cocaine, as if he’s seen it all before.
And that’s probably because he has. As the first black Circuit Court judge in Duval County, Adams’ stature in the legal community is undisputed in a city that was still drenched in racial politics at the time of his appointment. And because his initial interest in the judiciary stemmed from the political desire to see if an African-American could land a job on the bench in this town, Adams interprets his mandate as an important one.
A native of Jacksonville, Adams now spends much of his time in Nassau County, at his home on American Beach. He got to know the area during his time on the Circuit Court, when he opted to spend some time in the neighboring counties — and was drawn back.
“My apprehensions about Nassau County proved to be false,” said Adams, referring to what he thought would be the potential for racism there. “There are nice people out there and at this point I spend more time there than at my house in Jacksonville.”
Henry Lee Adams went to the now-defunct Matthew Gilbert High School and then to Florida A&M University where he received a bachelors degree in political science. After graduation, he went to Howard University in Washington, D.C. and earned his law degree by 1969.
His first job was with the Duval Legal Aid Society (now the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc.) where he was employed with a Reginald Heber Smith Fellowship meant to assist the poor in areas like consumer rights and government affairs. It was a proactive job, designed to pursue legal action to correct injustices levied against large numbers of people. Adams and his small coterie of activist lawyers sought welfare reform, social security reform, fair housing reform, lobbied for consumer and trade legislation and battled discrimination of all kinds.
“We were also doing everyday legal aid work, too,” said Adams, who chooses his words carefully as he tries to remember the old days. “We had plenty of work.”
Adams stayed with Legal Aid for one year before jumping to the public defender’s office to work for Lou Frost. He, like the others, tried a lot of cases during his two years there.
In 1972, Adams joined forces with Bill Shepherd, Lyman Fletcher, Jack Hand and Hugh Carithers (now a Circuit Court judge) in private practice. Handing police brutality litigation, discrimination cases, housing and unemployment cases, and criminal defense, Adams continued the fight for the underprivileged.
Adams added personal injury to the mix when he left in 1976 to start Marshall & Adams with local attorney Reese Marshall on the corner of Union and Hogan streets downtown.
Marshall said he was always surprised at how even-handed Adams was even as an attorney.
“He always really understood the specific needs of the client,” said Marshall. “And his even-handedness carried over to his abilities as a judge.”
Adams stayed in private practice until 1979 when he was appointed by Gov. Bob Graham to the Circuit Court.
“I really just wanted to see if a black judge could make it,” said Adams, who followed the legacies of Joseph Hatchett, the first black Jacksonville-born judge to sit on the Federal bench, and Leander Shaw, who made it all the way to the Florida Supreme Court. “I would’ve been happy if any black lawyer in Jacksonville could sit on the Circuit Court. It was just a coincidence that it turned out to be me.”
But Adams also had the support of the local attorneys. His even-tempered view of the law won him the respect of even those who sat on the other side of the table.
Adams bounced around a lot during his time on the Circuit Court. Out of the 14 years he spent there, more than six were in Nassau County, either full-time or part-time.
“The reason I liked working in Nassau County was because you got to do a little bit of everything,” said Adams, referring to the system in Duval County where judges on the Circuit bench rotate from civil to criminal to family. “There, each day had more variety.”
In September 1993, a few months after U.S. District Judge William Hodges moved from Tampa to Jacksonville, Adams was nominated by President Clinton to replace Hodges in Tampa.
His family stayed in Jacksonville and so Adams spent the next seven years commuting — by car and by plane — on the weekends.
“I like that area,” he said of Tampa and St. Petersburg, where he had actually spent some time during college teaching high school as part of the political science curriculum at A&M. “They have a good local Bar there and good judges.”
Now assigned back in Jacksonville, Adams spends most of his time with criminal felony drug charges, something that he said is changing.
“There’s actually been a new emphasis on federal gun laws,” said Adams, speaking of a trend that started prior to Sept. 11. “And of course general criminal fraud, like social security, Medicaid, stuff like that.”
Adams will rule on between 350-400 cases before the year is over.
“I plan on serving on the Federal court until I retire,” Adams said. “The biggest thing happening is that we’ll be moving into the new courthouse in the fall.”
The day of the interview, Adams had taken a tour of his new office and was asked his opinion on where to put the witness box and the court reporter’s box.
Asked about his philosophy as a judge, Adams said that since he doesn’t have to run for re-election, he doesn’t have to explain anything. “I try to be the best judge I can be. And I try to be fair, I really do. I treat people like I would like to be treated.”
Asked about big cases that he has presided over during his 24 years as a judge, Adams said only, “Let’s just say there were many memorable ones. I just can’t really talk about them.”
These days Adams uses his house on American Beach as a way to catch up on his Tom Clancy and John Grisham books. His surf fishing days are all over now.
“One of the blessings of living here is that there are no shortages of golf courses,” said Adams. “So I take advantage of that.”
Adams’ wife Elaine was his high school sweetheart. They have two children, Henry Adams II, who just bought a Cingular Wireless dealership in Jacksonville, and daughter, Cheryl Taylor, his oldest, who works at WorkSource and just had a baby boy.
Adams was always active in more non-official Florida Bar activities like the public defender/prosecutor training program at the University of Florida and the National Institute of Trial Advocates, as well as Young Lawyers functions.
“I just got back from a seminar on Federal practice, so I stay informed” Adams said. “But as for the constant events, mostly I leave those to the young lawyers these days.”