by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
Once or twice a year when Peter Dearing goes on Kairos Ministry weekends to local prisons to spread the Word, he sometimes runs into the very people he put there. What may not always make for a comfortable reacquaintance is that Dearing himself admits he’s one of the harsher sentencing judges in Duval County.
But for reasons divine or otherwise, the prisoners listen, and Dearing delivers the message that while he was required to protect the public from their potential for future crime, he was not giving up on them or striking them from the world. They are still good people — God’s people — and he treats them as such.
Dearing is an ordained Episcopalian minister, just like his father. He grew up in the rectory of an Episcopalian church in Springfield and always had an interest in the ministry.
“My dad was the most saintly man I’ve ever met,” said Dearing.
Dearing’s family has been in Jacksonville for as long as anyone could really be from Jacksonville. He’s a descendent of Isaiah D. Hart, who moved down from Georgia in the 1821, and along with John Brady, is credited with founding the city. Dearing’s uncle was former Federal Judge William McCreigh.
“I’ve known I wanted to be a lawyer since I was in ninth grade civics class,” said Dearing, who transferred from Jackson High School to The Bolles School when every school in Duval County lost is accreditation in the early 1960s. “It was because of my uncle.”
At that time, Bolles was converting from a military school to a prep school and was passing out ranks to people as long as they could “smile and walk in a straight line.” According to Dearing, the school was just trying to empty the supply store. Bolles made Dearing a very unofficial junior sailor in record time.
Then it was straight to Sewanee, where at his father’s alma mater, he majored in political science. When he graduated, it was off to Gainesville where he breezed through the University of Florida Law School in nine quarters.
In 1970, he became a law clerk for Judge Gerald Tjoflat. And if it was Uncle William that made Dearing want to be a lawyer, it was both his uncle and Tjoflat that made Dearing want to be a judge.
“I saw what a positive influence both of those guys had on the people who came before them as well as the entire community,” said Dearing. “And Uncle William always told me, the legal field is very crowded, but there’s always plenty of room at the top.”
A year later, in 1971, Dearing became a federal prosecutor. As an assistant U.S. attorney, Dearing worked with current Federal Judge Harvey Schlesinger, future Magistrate Howard Snyder and Tampa Circuit Court Judge Manny Menendez.
“A lot of the work we were doing in the 1970s had to do with the oil embargo and OPEC,” said Dearing. “But I tried cases against F. Lee Bailey and his conspirators, who were accused of mail fraud and lots of other things.”
Dearing said he learned a lot from the defense attorneys he went up against as a federal prosecutor.
In 1976, the same year Dearing left the U.S. Attorney’s Office to join Mahoney Hadlow, he decided to enroll in Sewanee’s Theology School, by extension, in Jacksonville. Four years later, he would have his certificate in Theology.
At Mahoney Hadlow, Dearing practiced commercial litigation and some federal criminal defense. Although most of the money came from its civil practice, the firm wanted to keep some lawyers experienced in the federal system.
“One really interesting case was when I was appointed to represent a United States Army officer who was accused of being a Russian spy,” said Dearing. “I had to get my security clearance updated from top secret to cryptography.”
At that time, Dearing was arguing that the death penalty for espionage was unconstitutional.
“There was just some nuance to the law at that time that didn’t work,” said Dearing. “They fixed it eventually, but my guy lived.”
Dearing worked at Mahoney Hadlow from 1975 to 1988, but in 1984, he was called.
“I took a year sabbatical from Mahoney Hadlow and moved my entire family to Gilford, England to do missionary work,” said Dearing, sounding more like a minister than a judge. “It is unmeasurable how rewarding that experience was, how much perspective you gain from an experience like that.”
According to Dearing, less than five percent of the British attend any kind of religious institution. Dearing contributes it to the overwhelming indoctrination students receive in schools.
“I think you become anesthetized to it,” said Dearing. “I think once England Christianized the entire world, they forgot about themselves.”
And while taking five children out of school was fraught with potential problems, everything worked out perfectly, as it should for missionaries.
“I think the kids really loved their time in England,” said Dearing.
When Dearing and his family came back to Jacksonville, he worked at Mahoney Hadlow for three more years until he applied for a Circuit Court opening and was appointed by Gov. Bob Martinez. Dearing was called again.
“I felt like it was the right time and I happened to be of the right persuasion for Gov. Martinez,” he said.
Asked about the evolution of a judgeship in Jacksonville over the last 15 years, Dearing noted that while there is a lot of talk about a reduction in crime, he’s got twice as big a case load as he did in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“I guess human nature hasn’t changed much in 2000 years,” said Dearing, who considers himself a lawyer first and a judge second.
Dearing, for his part, tries to change hearts as much as behavior. He said the Kairos Prison Ministry reduces the recidivism rate by 80 percent, something the Duval County courts could never do.
But Dearing enjoys fishing and golf, too. And his family. He met his wife Nora during a case when she was working as a court reporter. She has her own Christian radio show. Their son David is a lawyer, their twin daughters, Shelley and Amanda, along with Jason, and Daniel, all live in Jacksonville.
Emily Lisska, the executive director of the Jacksonville Historical Society, said that it was appropriate that this article appear in the summer of 2002. It was in June, almost exactly 180 years ago, that Dearing’s great great great great grandfather, Isaiah D. Hart, pitched a tent on Market Street, right next to where the Duval County Courthouse currently stands, and upon the advice of a friend who fought with Andrew Jackson, called his new home Jacksonville.