by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
One of a series on Jacksonville’s Judges.
The walls are bare in County Judge Linda McCallum’s chambers. Framed crayon drawings carefully crafted by her children lean against the furniture, waiting to be hung in another room on another floor of the Duval County Courthouse. McCallum is moving Jan. 2 to her new position as a circuit judge for the 4th Judicial Circuit.
At 38, she’s not the youngest person ever to swing a gavel in circuit court, but considering the fact she’s been presiding over county court for seven years, it’s a credit to her determination and years of hard work.
It also should be noted that had McCallum stayed in her birth country of Iran, she would never had been able to rise through the ranks of the legal community at all.
“Not now,” she agreed. “As a woman I certainly couldn’t. At the time that I lived there and was raised there, women were professionals in all areas of the work force. Women could be anything at the time that I lived there. They’ve taken leaps backwards. It’s a shame. It’s a real shame.”
Born in Iran to a Puerto Rican mother and an Iranian father, McCallum enjoyed life as a young girl in the Middle East with her two sisters and brother. Iran’s leadership under the shah took a secular and modernistic slant but he ruled with a heavy hand, causing resentment among the people. Religiously-inspired revolt led to violence in 1978. The shah went into exile in 1979, making way for more a more religious fundamentalist regime, which relegated women to domestic ambitions. McCallum’s father then took his family to America.
Although her home country isn’t the most progressive with respect to women’s rights, McCallum still remembers the history and the culture of the region fondly.
“I don’t think people realize what a rich history that part of the world has,” she said. “Many of our greatest cultural civilizations came, initially, from that part of the world. They seem so backwards now to Americans. They all think they are backwards and it appears that way to them. There is a very rich history. Unfortunately, that’s not visible and what’s happening now in the way of human rights issues that are going on — and especially the way they treat women particularly — is something I’m concerned with. There is a wonderful cultural history in that area of the world. And of course all the misconceptions about Islam.”
Half a world away, McCallum seems as far removed from Islam and the unrest of the Middle East as every other American that tunes in nightly for the update on Afghanistan or the latest scuffle between Israel and Palestine. With a light Southern lilt in her voice typical of so many North Floridians, she talks at length about being a soccer mom, taking her children to school, cooking dinners and getting ready for Christmas.
She and her husband, John, juggle time with their two girls, Taelor and Mariah, between busy careers. By day, John investigates for the state attorney’s office and Linda tries to sort out people’s lives. By night, the children come first.
“We don’t really have that much spare time,” she admits. “When soccer season is in, we’re doing soccer trips. My oldest, Taelor, is a big horseback rider. She does shows and has her horse. My husband and I have a real good partnership. There’s no way I could do it alone. We have to do the tag-team thing quite a bit.”
With a diverse family history, McCallum tries to keep touch with the cultures and the history of her ancestors as well as customs from around the world and pass them along to her children. Whether it’s speaking different languages or trekking through Europe with the children, she and her husband try to keep things diverse.
“I think it’s so important to be exposed to other cultures and other languages to be open-minded about that,” she said. “I started making Persian food. It’s hard to find a Persian recipe book, by my dad brought one from London for me. It’s not easy to make until you do it a couple times. Now the kids are like, ‘Oh no, mom’s cooking Persian again.’ The first efforts were really bad.”
Like many success stories, McCallum’s first attempt at the circuit bench fell short. When the Florida Legislature approved a new circuit judgeship earlier this year, she submitted her name again and received the appointment.
A graduate of Florida State University and Cumberland Law School, McCallum took a position with the state attorney’s office in 1986 under Ed Austin. Like every prosecutor, she carries her share of memories about significant cases.
“One in particular. It was a retrial on a rape case,” she remembered. “It was very difficult to put the two defendants that were dangerous back in court. I had no doubt in my mind that if they were not convicted and released on the street, that there would be other victims following without question. It was a difficult case. The victims had to go through it all again. So that was very important to me, in terms of their records and the danger to the community and the victims.”
The defendants were found guilty, but like McCallum says, it never ends — especially for the victims.
“It never goes away,” she said. “Just recently, I got a call from the state attorney’s office asking me some questions because the victim had received some communication from the defendant. This is now nine years later.”
From her days as an assistant state attorney to her seven years on the county bench, McCallum has seen countless cases. Although she considers each case carefully and tries to make the best decision based on the facts presented, she knows there are scores of cases waiting to be tried. Overwhelming? Depressing? Futile?
“If you look at it that way, it’s pretty fatalistic. It never ends,” he said. “You’re like one of those hamsters in the circular toy. But I choose not to look at it that way.
“I get frustrated when I see people come before me who have created a mess in their lives over a series of small things that, had they been handled right away, would have been nothing but a blip on the radar screen. But now it’s destroying their life.
“But I hadn’t practiced at this mentality when I was a prosecutor. As a prosecutor, it never ends. You prosecute one and you get another one. So I had 10 years of working on that thought process of working one case at a time and one person at a time. It’s very helpful. If you look at the big picture, it’s a lot more difficult.”
When McCallum moves over to the circuit bench Jan. 2, she’s not looking for a lot of fanfare. She’s leaning toward skipping the investiture and moving straight to her first assignment in dependency court.
“Everyone’s reaction, when they hear that, is like yours, ‘Oh, that’s terrible.’ I feel pretty good about it,” she said. “I’m familiar with the system. I’m familiar with the parties in terms of what agencies are involved. Children are a special interest of mine.”