william m hoevelerspeech

8/3/2019 William M HoevelerSpeech

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INTRODUCTION OF THE HONORABLE WILLIAM M.HOEVELER AS THE RECIPIENT OF THE NED

DAVIS AWARD FOR JUDICIAL EXCELLENCE

GIVEN BY THE FEDERAL BAR ASSOCIATION ONTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011

Good Evening to everyone. It is a privilege to

to be able to present the Ned Award for Judicial

Excellence to my colleague and friend, the

Honorable William M. Hoeveler. May I first take one

moment to recognize Pat Davis. It is so good to

see you. We all welcome you.

Pat, I can almost see Ned sitting there, next to

you, with one of those huge, wise grins, arms folded,

and head cocked in that Judge Davis way.

I can almost hear him saying, Bill, I just wanted

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to tell you tonight how pleased I am that you are

getting this well-earned recognition in my name. He

would say, you are a great friend to us all, a generous

colleague, and an inspiration to judges, to lawyers and

to the public alike. We are all so proud.

And it is true. The very name William M. Hoeveler

generates in us strong, warm feelings and emotions.

Bill Hoeveler brings out thebest in us by simply being

who he is. We want to do better and to be better when

we are in his presence.

Many have said so over the years. If you would

indulge me for a few minutes, I would like to tell you

what others have had to say.

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The Miami Herald ran an article in 1991 entitled,

The Courts Mister Clean. I quote: A biblical judge;

a great boogie-woogie piano man. A heck of a nice

guy. William M. Hoeveler wins unabashed praise from

everyone-including the most famous defendant in his

federal courtroom: General Manuel Noriega. Noriega

said: The one shining light through this legal

nightmare has been your honor. You have acted as

honest and fair as anyone can hope for.

The article went on to say the following: He is

regarded as so upright that one Federal Magistrate

was quoted as calling him, ivory, like the soap,

because he is 99.44 percent pure. [MY GUESS

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THAT WAS JUDGE PALERMO] His colleague, now

deceased, Eugene Spellman, said I call him the

biblical judge. He has the wisdom of Solomon and the

patience of Job.

True enough. He does have a few things going for

him. At six feet five, with angular features and a

magisterial bearing, and a baritone speaking voice,

Judge Hoeveler reminds a few of his friends of what

Abraham Lincoln must have been like. Even the

Almanac of the Federal Judiciary described him as

Lincolnesque, and, at times, the description seems

eerily fitting. You know that in his office he has a bust

of Abe Lincoln with those screwy, cockeyed glasses

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on Abes nose. The Judge said, My secretary gave

that to me one year for Christmas. Whatever

significance it has is in her mind.

Another article, in the September 1992 Harvard

Magazine, said: In his years on the federal bench,

Judge Hoeveler has become known for his wide-

ranging intellect, his command of the law and his

uncompromising sense of fairness. In his courtroom

he is attentive and unfailingly polite, and he has an

almost limitless capacity to be amused, to find fun

where others find frustration. Lawyers who appear

regularly before him say that the more intricate the

point of law, the more Judge Hoeveler enjoys

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exploring it.

The article went on to say, His willingness to

listen to every side of an argument sometimes slows

his proceedings to a crawl, and he admits to agonizing

over rulings, but he is a deeply religious man with an

earnest desire to do right, and that effort takes time.

One lawyer says, He reflects on it again and again

and then reflects on it once more. It comes from a

deep sense of compassion. Judge H reads the Bible

so much that the copy on his desk is dog-eared.

In turn, Bill has been quoted as saying, I know it

sounds saccharin, but I subscribe to the teaching that

to love people is where it is. Even in bad people you

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can see the hope of change and redemption.

There is a true story that before a drug importation

trial, a defense attorney told Judge Hoeveler that his

client was still in a jail uniform and needed a few

minutes to change. The judge said he would rather not

wait, thought for a moment, stood up, took off his

sweater and handed it to the attorney. Make sure hes

seated when the jury comes in, and hell look fine in

this. I hope he likes blue.

Bills father was a Marine who served in World

War I with the American Expeditionary Force in Paris,

and his mother was a French Opera singer. The future

judge was born in Paris on August 23, 1922, the

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second of three children. He talked about his parents.

He said: When my mother was 80-something, she

could sing whole sections of Cyrano de Bergerac

without looking at anything. My father was a good

man, stern, and my mother was a delight.

His great-grandfather was the first electrical

engineer in Pittsburgh.

Bill was raised outside of Philadelphia. In high

school, he became fascinated with lawyers and

criminology. He devoured books, such as Irving

Stones 1941 classic, Clarence Darrow for the

Defense. Later, after he became a federal judge, he

kept portraits on the wall of his office of his legal

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heroes: Louis Brandies, Roscoe Pound, and Oliver

Wendell Holmes.

He was a basketball star in high school and won an

athletic scholarship to Temple University. He spent

two years at Temple University before joining the

Marines. When he finished his tour of duty in 1946, he

finished college at Bucknell.

His basketball skills continued in his judicial

career. He played Nerfbasketball in the library in his

office. The Miami News had a headline: Office

basketball keeps federal judge cool for his hottest

case-Noriega.

At Harvard Law School, in the 1940s, Bill was

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known, and this was quoted in the Miami News of

January 10, 1984, as The Hunk. A Miami attorney

who lived in the same dorm explained it this way. We

had some pretty good Saturday night parties. Bill

would be right in there in our suite at Hastings Hall

playing the boogie-woggie piano, by far the best-

looking guy in the room. All the girls would come in

and would be all over Bill, but he would stop them

before they made fools of themselves. He was then,

and still is, instinctively gracious.

His repertoire included blues classics and less

august classics, namely Big Fat Mamma With Meat on

Her Bones.

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He was co-president of the Class of 1950 at

Harvard Law School which included a future United

States Attorney General, two senators, and the Chief

Counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, Sam

Dash. His fellow students honored him as Marshall of

the Class of 1950. As one of his classmates said, Bill

had an appeal to everybody. He also appealed to the

former Mary Griffin Smith whom he married while at

Harvard. She was the daughter of a partner with a

Miami law firm that he would later join. They went on

to have four children, Hank, Betsy, Margaret and

Mary.

Bill and Griff moved to Miami in 1951. For twenty

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years, he was affiliated with the Knight, Peters,

Hoeveler law firm. His specialty was to defend other

professionals-attorneys, accountants, architects, and

engineers-accused of malpractice. He was considered

among the top five American experts in the legal

defense of architects.

This is what was written about his years in private

practice:

As a trial lawyer, Bill Hoeveler was a natural-

dashing, deliberate, charming, polite-and he won over

witnesses and juries alike. Other lawyers settled out of

court rather than face him. One of the top trial

attorneys in the South, J.B. Spence, admitted to being

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service.

Within six years on the Bench, he was named the

best Federal district judge in Alabama, Florida or Georgia

by theAmerican Lawyer Magazine. The Miami News in

1984 wrote an article calling him The Best Judge In

Town. The lawyers thought so too. He has been the top

judge on just about every bar poll. He has also been

recognized with numerous awards, including the Dade

County Bar Associations David W. Dyer Professionalism

Award; the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Greater

Miami Jewish Federation; the Humanitarian of the Year

Award by the YMCA of Greater Miami; the recipient of the

Silver Medallion Award for Brotherhood from the National

Conference of Christians and Jews; the Judicial

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people say, why dont you just chuck it and let somebody

else finish it? His response was thats not the way to do

it. I had an obligation to get back there and finish it. So,

six weeks after his operation, the trial resumed. You

might remember that the jury deadlocked but eventually

came to a verdict. With that deadlock, Bill almost needed

mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The Noriega case was not Bills only famous case.

There were numerous other ones over the years: The

Longshoremen Union cases, one of the longest trials in

this District; the Everglades cases; the trial of the Zion

Coptics; the handling of constitutional claims against the

jails in Dade, Broward and Monroe Counties; the Elian

Gonzalez case; again, just to name a few.

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His judicial secretary for over 39 years, Janice

Tinsman, reflected on the toll these cases had taken on

Bill, but also of the iron will of the man who presided

the iron will you see when you shake his hand and look

into his eyes. She wrote to me:

He is well known for his professionalism. He is often

considered by people to be the epitome of what a judge

should be.

But there is another thing he has taught us that many

people do not realize, and that is we are on a journey in

our lives.

I have seen him journey back from a major stroke

because he believed in what he did in serving the public.

He did not just sit down and not come back.

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I have seen him journey back from the loss of his

wife only a couple of months after suffering his stroke. He

did not quit.

I have seen him come in weary from a sleepless

night because he worried over his rulings that he knew he

had to make and how it would affect all of those involved,

and while he suffered sometimes the proverbial slings

and arrows of those involved because of the ruling, he

journeyed on because he had to. He loves the law. He

did not give it up.

He has shown us that he is a man of faith in God. He

has shown us that on our paths in life, no matter what has

put us on that path or what is in front of us, that we must

always journey on.

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What Janice was referring to, as we all well

remember, was that during February 2000, Bill suffered

a severe stroke as he was presiding over the Elian

Gonzalez case. Bills iron will was tested by this event.

We all were in awe as we watched Bill fight back through

a tough rehabilitation; we watched him come back to the

bench and try cases; we watched with delight when he

married Christine who has brought so much joy to his life.

I would like to take this moment to recognize Christine

Hoeveler.

Janice is right about the journeying part. Bill has had

quite the journey. But he has never journeyed alone.

Besides Christine, his children, his church, he has had a

devoted office staff. I mentioned Janice, but there also is

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Barbara Junge who has been his career clerk for 13

years, and who affectionately refers to him as The Boss.

Needless to say, over the many years, there have been

numerous other law clerks to whom he has been a

mentor and who now are outstanding lawyers.

And, of course, there has been the rest of us. His

colleagues, his friends, and his admirers who have been

with him in the best and worst of times. Throughout it all,

he has given us enormous gifts. He has inspired us with

his courage, he has challenged us to be professional and

courteous, and he has given us a standard of excellence

to live by.

When you get down to it, perhaps the best to introduce

tonights award recipient is with his own words:

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I dont know that any one person can do much to

change it all, but the fact that you cant do a great deal

yourself is no reason to do nothing. Its frustrating, but if

everybody decided that they wanted to give some, it

would make a lot of difference in the long haul. It doesnt

bother me that when I expire, we will not have solved

three-quarters of the problems that we have. At least we

can make an effort.

Tonight, Bill, we stand united in recognizing your

efforts, your friendship and your excellence. We join

together in saying to you, Thank you for a job well done.

Introduction by Senior United States District Judge

Alan S. Gold.

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