Rhode Island News

PROVIDENCE - Superior Court Judge Frank J. Williams is well on his way to becoming the next chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court after winning unanimous Senate approval last night.
All that remains is a swearing-in ceremony, which has yet to be scheduled.

The vote was unanimous, after a chorus of praise for Williams's integrity, diligence, compassion, fairness and Vietnam war record by one senator after another.

Republican Sen. Mary Parella of Bristol called him "the right man for the right job." Senate Judiciary Chairman Joseph Montalbano, D-North Providence, called him "one of Rhode Island's truly outstanding citizens." Sen. John Tassoni, D-Smithfield, citing Williams's role in settling a long-running fight over the Davis tire dump, said: "Now we can go home at night and sleep."

Putting yesterday's vote in its historic context, Montalbano said: "The decision we make today as state leaders in confirming a new chief justice of the Supreme Court has profound implications for every citizen of the state, for the other two branches of government and, as we are reminded by the recent election controversy in Florida, for the country as well."

In his thank-you speech to the Senate, Williams promised, "I will do the best I can, the very best I know how and will do so until the end."

He also used his moment in the spotlight to talk about the memories he brought back to Rhode Island from Vietnam in 1967. "The people I know who were at Ban Me Thuot, Plaiku, Dalat or Nha Trang didn't kill helpless women and children or anyone else, either, there or when they got home ... It is about time that the myths that have tainted America's view of Vietnam veterans are put to rest."

Watching proudly were his wife, Virginia, father, Frank and mother, Natalie. Seated next to his brother Ronald was former Senate Majority leader John Bevilacqua, whose own father, Joseph A. Bevilacqua, was forced to resign as chief justice in 1986. From the moment that Republican Governor Almond announced on Jan. 4 his choice of Williams, 60, for the state's top court post, the nomination sailed quickly and without hitch through the overwhelmingly Democratic House and Senate.

Williams was a legislative lobbyist, a probate court judge in West Greenwich and Hopkinton, and a town solicitor in several other Rhode Island communities before Almond appointed him to the state court bench in 1995.

His rise to chief of the $60-million-a-year court system will make him the first non-legislator to become chief justice since ex-Gov. Dennis J. Roberts swore in his brother, Thomas H. Roberts, in January 1966.

Roberts' successors — Joseph A. Bevilacqua, a former House Speaker; Thomas F. Fay, a former House Judiciary chairman; and Weisberger, a former Senate Republican leader — all came to the bench and ultimately, the Supreme Court, from the General Assembly's own ranks.

But Williams — whose father, Frank, was a leader in Cranston Republican circles and a long-time GOP member of the state Board of Elections — won praise from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike as his nomination moved forward.

The nominee — an Italian-American whose grandfather changed the family name from Guglielmo to Williams — was lauded for his legal skills, his compassion and his political acuity.

As Supreme Court Justice Victoria Lederberg, a former Democratic lawmaker who was one of Williams's competitors for the job of chief justice, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday night: "the chief justice sets the face and the tone of the entire judiciary in our state."

With his "very great legal skills" and "abundance of judicial temperament," Lederberg said Williams would represent the courts well.

Parella hailed him for another virtuous act: Williams, who lives in Richmond but served for a short time as town attorney for Bristol, made time last December to preside over the swearing-in of her town's elected officials.

In his turn, Williams reassured the lawmakers he is "not a judicial activist," but "a moderate" who believes the courts must pay "due deference" to the General Assembly and its law-making powers.

He told them he would like to see judges "act as mediators" more often and also make more use of alternate sentencing, such as home confinement or community service, because "not everyone needs to go to jail."

At one point, he acknowledged personal discomfort with the death penalty, but said: "we are supposed to leave our personal views at the threshold of the courthouse door."

Almond chose Williams over four other finalists who had also been recommended by the state's judicial nominating commission: Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah, Supreme Court Justices Robert G. Flanders Jr. and Victoria Lederberg, and Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan.

When asked earlier this week to explain the ease with which Republican Almond's nominee had cleared the Democrat-controlled Assembly, House Speaker John Harwood, D-Pawtucket said: "This is a political building. No question about it ... but you try to look at qualifications, rather than party, and that's what I am sure the Judiciary Committee did and that is certainly what I think the whole body did."

Harwood acknowledged having put in a good word for Jeremiah to Almond's director of the department of administration, Robert L. Carl Jr.

"I made a pitch in the sense that I thought there was a need for a Family Court person," Harwood said. "If you do your homework, you'll find out that a lot of the appeals that are very difficult appeals come from the Family Court because you've just taken someone's children away [or] you've just thrown some man or woman out of their house." But, Harwood added: "I could live with all four of them. If they said, we want to nominate Justice Lederberg, I would say fine. She has the qualifications. If they wanted Frank Darigan who is a wonderful judge, I would say fine. Judge Jeremiah, fine. And Frank Williams. Not a problem, either," said Harwood. "Justice Williams is a very highly qualified person who I think will do a good job. Period." The fifth finalist, Flanders, had written a spirited dissent to a recent opinion affirming the legislature's powers.

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DIGITAL EXTRA

Read a 1998 Journal profile of Judge Frank Williams as he presided over the highly publicized Block Island rape trial:

http://projo.com/news/risupreme/