{"id":4656,"date":"2026-06-19T08:33:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T08:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=4656"},"modified":"2026-06-19T08:33:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T08:33:38","slug":"editorial-florida-mourns-the-loss-of-two-champions-of-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=4656","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Florida mourns the loss of two champions of justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s a fanciful thing, but comforting to imagine: A sunny corner of the afterlife where the lions of Florida\u2019s political history \u2014 the champions of transparency and humanity, the enemies of prejudice, corruption and cruelty \u2014 hang out over platters of grouper sandwiches and sweating pitchers of sweet iced tea. The stories they\u2019d tell, of fights to protect Floridians (sometimes against corrupt corporations or over-reaching government, sometimes against their own worst impulses). The insistence that justice always mattered. The recognition that the people the law ignores are often the ones who need its protections the most.<\/p>\n

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In the past few weeks, two more seats have been pulled up to that infinite table. Former Supreme Court Justice R. Fred Lewis, who served during the court\u2019s modern acme of judicial courage and fierce independence, died May 26 at the age of 78 \u2014 leaving a legacy of towering opinions and equally thunderous dissents, often skewering elected leaders who exceeded their authority.<\/p>\n

Before the late Gov. Lawton Chiles appointed him to the state\u2019s top court in 1998, Lewis had made his mark as a civil attorney in South Florida. Many initially ranked him as one of Chiles\u2019 most conservative picks. But he wasn\u2019t about to be constrained by labels: His priority was first and foremost the people of the state of Florida. He showed as much when he blocked misleading amendments, proposed by lawmakers, from the ballot \u2014 as well as when he refused to strike voter-proposed amendments that attempted to strip politics from Florida\u2019s redistricting process.<\/p>\n

Lewis lived to see Gov. Ron DeSantis unravel much of what he\u2019d accomplished in defending voters\u2019 rights. Just a month before the justice\u2019s death came a shocking declaration that Florida\u2019s Fair Districts amendment had been deemed unconstitutional \u2014 not by any court of law, but by DeSantis and his attorney. And it\u2019s not hard to imagine Lewis making coleslaw of an amendment lawmakers have approved for the 2026 ballot that could create a massive power shift away from local communities, and toward bureaucrats in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

Then on June 2, Volusia County lost a man whose career rarely hewed to the profitable tedium of his father\u2019s large, profitable real-estate law firm in DeLand. Instead, Richard S. \u201cDick\u201d Graham ran the gamut of public service, serving as a state legislator, School Board attorney and eventually circuit judge. For most of his career, Graham was probably best known as the upstart Republican who, in 1988, challenged Daytona Beach Democratic state Rep. Sam Bell for his seat. Bell was seen as unbeatable: described by the Sentinel as \u201ca wily, powerful insider,\u201c he was chair of the House Appropriations Committee and on deck to become House speaker in 1990. Instead, Graham sent him to the locker room, beating Bell with a 55% majority. In retrospect, Bell\u2019s defeat (along with the fall of three other powerful lawmakers, including the late Sen. Dempsey Barron) was seen as a casualty of Florida\u2019s short-lived services tax, which Bell supported.<\/p>\n

In the Legislature, Graham proved tough to nail down. Our 1990 endorsement of him for re-election described him as \u201crefreshingly independent\u201d with a focus on environmental protection and fiscal responsibility. After he lost his seat in 1992, he spent more than a decade as attorney for the Volusia School Board before being named to the circuit court, where he presided over several high-profile cases. One significant ruling undid a merger between Advent Health and Bert Fish Medical Center, after Graham found that the public board that owned Bert Fish violated the state open-meetings laws by meeting 21 times in secret to hammer out the details of the deal.<\/p>\n

But Graham\u2019s greatest contribution to Florida was only revealed a few years before his death in Ormond Beach at the age of 84. That story that formed the basis of \u201cUnder a Ruthless Sun,\u201d the second in a meticulously researched series of best-selling books by Gilbert King, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer who has developed a specialty of unraveling long-buried stories of injustice and civil rights abuses in Central Florida.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

The book gives Graham a great deal of the credit for seeing justice done. As a young lawyer looking for experience outside the comfortable confines of his father\u2019s law firm, he agreed to take on the case of Jesse Daniels, a developmentally disabled Lake County man accused in December 1957 of sexually assaulting a woman in her home. There was never any proof of this presented \u2014 the victim initially told police her attacker was Black \u2014 but there never needed to be, because Daniels was packed off to the state hospital in Chattahoochee, where he was held for 14 years without a trial or any attempt to determine his guilt or innocence. Even after Daniels had spent years locked up, no Lake County attorney would take the case: It meant angering the powerful (and on one side, powerfully corrupt) partnership of Sheriff Willis McCall and State Attorney Gordon Oldham.<\/p>\n

Graham was recruited to the case around 1969, after Mabel Norris Reese, a legendary journalist who was convinced that Daniels was innocent, sent Daniels\u2019 mother to Daytona Beach to plead for help. It took two years and a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Daniels was finally set free in 1971.<\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s success brought him to the attention of state Rep. Maxine Baker, a South Florida Democrat with a passion for the rights of people with mental illness. In 1972, she recruited him to help her write the act that would be named for her, and which spells out the rights that must be protected whenever the state involuntarily commits someone to mental-health treatment facilities. It was so solidly written that its most of its original provisions are still intact. Unsung and unrecognized before King\u2019s book was released, Graham helped construct major civil-rights legislation that is still protecting Floridians today,<\/p>\n

And his accomplishments on behalf of people with mental illness were surprisingly bookended by Lewis, who was one of the first to recognize the extent to which Florida\u2019s correctional systems had become the treatment option of last resort for people struggling with mental illness. He convened a task force whose report led to a 2007 all-courts summit. Sadly, many of its recommendations have yet to be adopted, but they should be reviewed \u2014 because many of the problems that task force predicted have since manifested.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t find any evidence that Graham and Lewis ever worked closely together. But they shared a passion for defending the defenseless \u2014 a dedication that overlapped at the critical juncture of mental health and the criminal justice system. That alone could win them a seat at the table of Florida\u2019s lost lions, and for each man, it\u2019s only one facet of a career spent serving the cause of justice in Florida.<\/p>\n

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use insight@orlandosentinel.com to contact us.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Former Florida Supreme Court Justice R. Fred Lewis and Volusia County stalwart Richard S. \u201cDick\u201d Graham both knew that justice always mattered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nEditorial: Florida mourns the loss of two champions of justice - Orlando Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=4656\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Editorial: Florida mourns the loss of two champions of justice - Orlando Relocation Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Florida Supreme Court Justice R. 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