|
|
1.24.2001 00:09
Williams one step from Assembly confirmation
 The House votes unanimous approval of the nominee for chief justice, and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorses him for full Senate approval tomorrow.
By KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE
-- Frank J. Williams, the governor's nominee for chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, cleared two major confirmation hurdles yesterday.
He won the unanimous approval of the House of Representatives without any debate. A few hours and several laudatory speeches later, he won the endorsement of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Williams, a one-time lawyer and legislative lobbyist who has been a Superior Court judge for the last five years, faces only one more hurdle: confirmation by the full Senate. The Senate vote on a replacement for the court's soon-to-retire chief justice, Joseph R. Weisberger, is expected to take place tomorrow.
For the second time since Republican Governor Almond nominated him for the top court post, Williams's fellow lawyers and judges -- including the chiefs of each of the state's three trial courts -- came to the State House to sing his praises.
Lawyer and former Senate Majority Leader John Bevilacqua -- a son of the late Joseph A. Bevilacqua, who resigned as chief justice in 1986 during a House impeachment inquiry -- made a rare public appearance in the hearing room of the Senate committee he once chaired, to pay his respects.
In his own turn, Williams told the senators what he told the House Judiciary Committee last week: "not everyone needs to go to jail"; judges should be encouraged to "act as mediators . . . both before and after litigation has commenced"; and the courts must pay "due deference to the legislative branch of government and its constitutional role to make the law."
Williams signaled some of his immediate plans, including the resurrection of a long dormant arm of the court system: a Judicial Advisory Board to look at an array of issues -- from courthouse security to the expanded use of video conferences -- and come up with a "five-year strategic plan" for the courts.
He also promised to personally visit "every facility which the judiciary uses" -- from cells blocks and storage areas to jury lounges -- to evaluate their adequacy.
"Frank Williams is as honest as the day is long," and "he really cares about people," said lawyer Mark Mandell, a former president of the Rhode Island Bar Association and of the state and national trial lawyers' associations.
"Equal justice under the law is not just something he says," added Mandell, noting that Williams not only lets jurors take notes; he has on occasion let them ask questions.
Weisberger called Williams "a man of outstanding character."
Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah recalled his own coming of age in Cranston Republican circles when Williams's father, a long-time Republican member of the state Board of Elections, was a leader in the city GOP.
Once a competitor for the top job in the $60-million-a-year court system, with its 700 employees, Jeremiah predicted Williams would make "an excellent chief justice." Others speaking on his behalf included South Kingstown Police Chief Vincent Vespia and Williams's friend Mark K. Malkovich III, director of the Newport Music Festival.
"He's not swayed by politics and all the rest of it," Malkovich said.
Williams gave his view of the job: "The chief justice should possess the skills of consensus-building and quiet diplomacy so that he is a rudder to his associate justices. He should also be known for a gentle demeanor and his insistence that fellow judges be polite in their dealings with the public and one another.
"Fairness should be the chief justice's paradigm. The right thing, the fair thing, should guide the court's jurisprudence."
|
|
|
|
Printer-Friendly Version
