Appearance of Evil

Florida is suffering a fire storm of scandals. Indictments and investigations are now pending against dozens of public servants, including former U.S. Senator Edward Gurney. Sadly, the judiciary offers Florida's citizens no comfort: the seven-man supreme court has been hit hardest by the scandals. Last week the third justice in little more than a year quit under a cloud, and a fourth may face impeachment. It was by far the worst series of court disgraces since 1965, when four members of the nine-judge Oklahoma supreme court were implicated in fixes and bribes.

Nothing has been revealed about Chief Justice Vassar B. Carlton's sudden resignation in January 1974, though he was then under investigation by the state's judicial qualifications committee. A second resignation involves a proposed opinion in a utilities case; the opinion was prepared by one of the companies' lawyers. Justice Joseph Boyd says that the draft opinion just turned up in his house after a visit by the lawyer. A copy also went to Justice Hal P. Dekle, who used it in writing a preliminary majority opinion that favored the utilities; the opinion was never issued. A court-appointed investigative panel condemned the "appearance of evil," but only recommended that Boyd and Dekle be reprimanded. Unsatisfied, a committee of the legislature began considering impeachment. Dekle quickly resigned; action is still pending on Boyd.

Not Bought. Meanwhile, the committee became interested in rumors about the propensity of Justice David McCain to rule in favor of Attorney Joseph D. Parish Jr., who actively supported McCain's campaign for the court. In nearly every case he has heard involving Parish clients, McCain voted their way.* One winning client testified that Parish advised her to lie about an illegally unreported $1,000 campaign contribution to McCain. Other evidence indicated that McCain once had an aide investigate grounds for appealing a lower-court decision against a Parish client, then voted for the client when the appeal reached the supreme court. The committee unanimously recommended McCain's impeachment, and he resigned last week.

In the midst of all this, reporters discovered that new Chief Justice James C. Adkins had headed off censure of his excessive drinking by agreeing in writing to go on the wagon. Despite the general debacle, Adkins in his annual state of the judiciary address boasted: "Your justices can neither be bossed, bluffed nor bought." Floridians hope that is true of the ones who are left.

* In one, McCain was part of a 4-3 majority voting to hear a case that led to the reinstatement of a $100,000 libel judgment against TIME on behalf of Socialite Mary Alice Firestone Asher. The decision is now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds unrelated to the scandal.

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