Peggy Ann Quince: Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court.

• Author: Pudlow, Jan
• Position: Interview

As the sun rose at the Virginia Beach shipyard, Solomon Roosevelt Quince, Sr., lit a fire in a barrel to warm his hands before loading cargo onto ships headed out to sea.

The first stevedore to arrive, he was an undereducated civilian working for the Navy, and often the first to be threatened with being laid off during hard economic times.

Struggling to raise all five children himself after the breakup of his marriage, he'd turned down his siblings' offers to take some of his kids.

"No," he insisted. "I want my children to grow up together." It wasn't easy. The Quinces were poor, but blessed with love.

Solomon Quince made sure his children would have it easier--stressing education would spare them the indignity he felt being at the mercy of others.

Peggy, his second oldest child, listened to her father.

After he'd leave for work, she waited for the school bus in rural Chesapeake to take her to a segregated school. Nurturing teachers helped fill the gap of not having a mother around and reinforced her father's teachings that education meant progress, both personally and for the entire African-American race. If Peggy made a C on a test, or talked too much in class, teachers were quick to call her father, because they knew she could do better.

She did the best she could. At Howard University, Peggy excelled, keeping her coveted place in the scholarship dorm. While in law school at Catholic University of America, she grabbed a unique opportunity at Columbus Community Legal Services, easily relating to her clients' poverty.

When she passed the Virginia bar exam, it was Solomon Quince who first read his daughter's name in the newspaper list of successful test-takers and called with the good news.

"He was more thrilled than I was!" Peggy Quince recalled with a laugh. "You could hear all the love and pride in his voice. There were a few tears."

When Peggy married fellow law student Fred Buckine, she kept her father's name.

"Because he did not have the same kind of opportunities, and he was proud of what we had accomplished," Quince explained, "I wanted to keep my name in honor of him."

With the lively delivery of a preacher from the pulpit, Buckine, a lawyer with a master's in theology, said this about his hardworking father-in-law who died 22 years ago: "All his life, for 72 years, Solomon never got justice. He was black in America, uneducated, a single parent. Now, he sits on his cloud and plays his harp. The justice he didn't get on Earth, he gets now. Everybody--young, old, white, black--everybody who appears before his daughter in court must give him justice. They must say: 'Justice Quince.'"

Quiet Strength

Beyond inheriting her father's work ethic and following his credo to get an education, Quince built a reservoir of strength from family and faith that steadily propelled her career as a government lawyer:

* Eight years with the Criminal Division of the Attorney General's office before being promoted in 1988 to Tampa bureau chief, handling death penalty appeals;

* A seat on the Second District Court of Appeal in 1993, appointed by Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles;

* A position on the Florida Supreme Court in 1998, uniquely named by both outgoing Chiles and Republican Gov.-elect Jeb Bush. Her commission, the formal document placing her on the bench, was signed by Gov. Buddy McKay, who briefly succeeded Chiles after his death.

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Now, during her two-year term as chief justice, Quince takes the helm of Florida's judicial branch as an unprecedented court funding crisis cries out for a permanent solution, and four of seven justices will be new to the bench.

In her calm, steady way, Quince addresses those dual challenges as opportunities for collaboration.

That more than half the court will be inexperienced justices, Quince said: "We will bring them into the fold. We will be a very collegial group. I think anyone who comes on this court will find that those still on the court will be willing to assist them any way we can in their transition. I believe the court will continue as usual."

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Continuing the court as usual, while draconian budget cuts threaten an independent judiciary, will be a tougher dilemma. Quince knows she can't solve it alone.

"I think the lawyers of Florida need to know that the court system consists of them also," she said. "We all need to work together to make sure that the third branch of government is open and accessible."

Second DCA Judge Carolyn Fulmer, appointed to that court at the same time as Quince, lobbies the legislature as a member of the Appellate Court Budget Commission.

"The budget cuts we are undergoing are overnight setting us back 15 years, and Chief Justice Quince is going to be dealing with the aftermath of that. She has the temperament: levelheaded, extremely firm, and calm at the same time."

Quince's talents as consensus--builder, Fulmer said, will help all of the justices--veterans and rookies--work together.

"She has a quiet strength," said longtime friend and colleague Bob Krauss, Tampa bureau chief of criminal appeals for the Attorney General's Office.

During the years they worked together, he witnessed Quince meticulously research and clearly write briefs, a workhorse driven by her keen sense of responsibility in representing the people of Florida on the gravest murder cases.

She was able to compartmentalize her work on those gruesome death cases, then go home to be a nurturing mother who made sure her two young daughters ate dinner and did their homework, before she tucked them into bed.

"Those cases are entitled to someone who really will put a lot of energy and time into it," Quince said. "I was willing to do that. I won't say that it isn't troubling sometimes. I believe whenever someone is executed, it is a given life that's taken. But as long as I've been comfortable that the person had a fair trial, had due process, then I think for the most part you have to realize that this is a case where it took its course and that was the ultimate punishment that was given. ... To the greatest extent possible, I would try to put those cases out of my mind when I was trying to spend...