Williams

PROVIDENCE –– Rhode Island’s legal community, its politicians and a handful of well-connected Washington insiders spent much of yesterday pondering the stunning news that the Ocean State’s most powerful judge, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams, will step down from his coveted post at the end of the month.

“It’s a mystery,” said David A. Logan, dean of Roger Williams University School of Law. “People are really puzzled.”

At 68 years old and after less than eight years on the job, Williams abruptly announced Thursday afternoon his plans to retire at the end of the month. He will be leaving a job he loved, friends and coworkers said.

Reached yesterday afternoon, Williams said there is no great mystery.

“Why can’t they accept the truth for a change?” he asked with frustration. “Why can’t they accept the fact that we accomplished what we set out to accomplish in my inauguration, which was big, and we did it in very quick time. I want to be relieved from the administrative burdens that are 24/7 as chief, and I want to continue to do jurisprudential stuff … Why can’t that be accepted?”

Some said they were simply caught off guard.

“He would have done it for free,” said Thomas Bowman, a court administrator under Williams from 1993 to 1994 who now serves as the chief of staff for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington. “To be frank with you, I would have thought he would have stayed a little longer.”

Not only was Williams passionate about the job, he also had a financial incentive to stay.

Had he waited two more years, the chief justice would have qualified for a lifetime pension equal to 100 percent of his $184,408.38 salary. Instead, he’ll receive 75 percent, or $138,306.28.

But Williams said there would have been questions either way.

“If I stayed two years for 100 percent [of my pension] instead of leaving for 75 percent, I’d get criticized for that, too,” he said. “If I think outside the box and say, at [age] 68, I have other interests, in cooking and Lincoln and writing, why isn’t that acceptable? Because this is Rhode Island, because people here are suspicious and cynical?”

The chief justice has also cited his elderly mother’s health as a factor in his decision.

Williams has long been known for his aggressive and sometimes combative style.

He helped arrange the construction of two new courthouses over his tenure and assumed greater control of the judiciary’s budget, but sometimes clashed with Governor Carcieri and the General Assembly along the way.

In June, the governor vetoed legislation pledging $88 million for one of Williams’ top priorities, a Blackstone Valley courthouse. And Carcieri unsuccessfully fought legislation in 2004 that limited the governor’s power over the judiciary’s annual budget.

Williams’ success in expanding the power of the judiciary, however, may have contributed to his departure.

Logan, the law school dean, said that Williams loved being a judge, but had shared his frustration over the administrative side of the job.

“It’s hard work,” Logan said of Williams’ position. “It is an administrative job. You’ve got a budget … That’s not as much fun as being a judge. We shared that. We spoke about the challenges of being an administrator.”

A longtime critic of Williams, Providence lawyer Keven McKenna, noted irony in the chief justice’s statement that he was tired of the “administrative burdens.”

McKenna has long argued that Williams’ control over the judiciary budget and other administrative duties is a violation of the state Constitution.

“He builds courthouses. He negotiates. He hires and fires people. That’s not a job for a judge,” McKenna said. “Frank wanted to be the chief public works director for the justice system … Exercising his unconstitutional powers were wearing him down.”

Political observers suggested that some skepticism over Williams’ departure is understandable, given the high-profile missteps of at least two former chief justices.

“Certainly, it’s unusual for someone in his position, someone who made himself a very visible figure throughout his tenure, to make an abrupt withdrawal that his colleagues didn’t know about. That’s curious,” said University of Rhode Island political science professor Maureen Moakley.

“Most people don’t give up a top position like that unless they have ill health, or political pressures, or other things,” said Darrell West, a former Brown University professor who now serves as vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

In 1986, Chief Justice Joseph A. Bevilacqua stepped down after 10 years on the bench, amid an impeachment inquiry that probed his associations with organized crime. That same year his successor, Thomas F. Fay, stepped into the chief justice’s job, pledging a return to integrity in the courts. It didn’t last.

Seven years later, Fay was forced to resign from the court’s top job following criminal ethics and obstruction of justice charges that included allegations that he used his position to benefit himself, his business associates and his political cronies.

speoples@projo.com