by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
With its emphasis on precedent, the application of law is in many ways the application of history. Fittingly, the responsibility of preserving the memory of Florida’s Supreme Court has been placed in the hands of a local lawyer with a long-lasting preoccupation with the State’s unique legal history.
Coker, Myers, Schickel, Sorenson and Green partner Howard Coker assumed the presidency of the Florida Supreme Court Historical Society in June at the Florida Bar’s annual meeting in Orlando. The Society collects and preserves materials relevant to the Court from territorial days to the present.
The task might sound as dry and dusty as the century-old pages the Society preserves, but to Coker the chapter of Florida history authored by its highest court represents a real page turner.
“It gives you a unique insight into the struggles that progress always requires,” said Coker. “You can look back to the days of Andrew Jackson and read through the arguments and the deliberations surrounding the Civil Rights movement in Florida. It gives you a picture of how people were thinking and acting during the time.”
In addition to preserving the materials produced by the Court, the Society presents oral history programs throughout the state, publishes a newsletter called Historia Juris, and has published a history of the Court from territorial days until 1917. Subsequent editions are already in the works, which will detail deliberations and decisions throughout Florida’s struggle with civil rights and the Court’s crucial role in the 2000 presidential election.
Just as important as reporting Florida’s legal history is preserving the documents that record it. Some of the documents require gloves to be worn to be handled safely. Electronic record-keeping is one promising avenue to store the data, but Coker sees value in preserving the documents in their original form.
“Back then, the written letter was an instrument of art,” said Coker. “The craft that goes into it is amazing. When I write something now, I look at it and can’t even read my own writing.”
In addition to presiding over the Society’s meetings, Coker, as president, will monitor progress on the written histories, preservation efforts and the oral presentations. Coker served as the Society’s first vice president before taking over the presidency from John Devault.
Coker’s professes a preoccupation with history dating back to his days as a history minor at the University of Florida. His interest in events past had just one practical shortcoming.
“I loved history, I just couldn’t figure out a way to feed myself with it. But it was always interesting to me,” he said.