Chief Justice Frank J. Williams prepares to enter the House chamber of the State House to deliver his annual State of the Judiciary address in February 2007.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

PROVIDENCE — Frank J. Williams, the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, stunned the legal community and his fellow justices yesterday when he announced that he will step down from the high court at the end of the month.

Williams, with his penchant for publicity and often confrontational style, amassed substantial political power in his eight-year reign, sometimes clashing with the governor and the General Assembly as he pushed through improvements in the court system.

In an interview yesterday afternoon, Williams, 68, said he is retiring because he had achieved many of his goals and wanted to leave before the next session of the General Assembly convenes. A nationally recognized Lincoln scholar, Williams said he plans to spend more time pursuing his passion.

“Why now?” he said. “There’s never a good time.”

But he said he’ll miss pushing for further improvements to the court system.

“The fight, the advocacy, protecting the judicial staff,” he said. “I see myself as very strong-willed, but the willfulness was for the people, not me.”

Williams had his letter of retirement hand-delivered at 3 p.m. to Governor Carcieri, who had no inkling of the chief justice’s decision.

“It has been a deep and abiding honor to serve the people of our beloved state,” Williams wrote. “To them, I owe everything as they never failed to sustain me and support my mission to lead the judiciary into the twenty-first century, particularly my efforts to enhance access to justice and make our courts more user-friendly.”

The letter so stunned Carcieri that he immediately called Williams to make sure it was true.

“I had no forewarning about it,” Carcieri said. “I talked to the chief and said, was there any other explanation? Is his health fine? He just felt that he had done what he tried to set out to do and he’s at that stage where he doesn’t want the administrative headaches anymore.”

The announcement was such a tightly held secret that even Craig N. Berke, the spokesman for the state judiciary, didn’t know until shortly before Williams notified the governor.

The other justices on the court, Maureen McKenna Goldberg, Francis X. Flaherty, Paul A. Suttell and William P. Robinson III, learned of the news when Williams summoned them to his chambers an hour before his resignation letter was delivered to Carcieri.

Goldberg, as the senior member of the court, will serve as acting chief justice until a replacement is named.

Williams, who earns $184,408.38 per year, will be eligible for 75 percent of his salary in retirement, or $138,306.28 annually. Had he remained for two more years, he would have been able to collect his full salary.

His last official day of work will be Dec. 30.

Williams, who admitted that he is a tad overweight, but added he has no health problems, said that when he became chief justice, in February 2001, he set out a 10-year plan to improve the state’s court system. He said that he accomplished most of those goals within five years.

Among them was legislation that gave the judiciary greater autonomy, including greater control over its budget.

Critics of Williams saw his advocacy of that legislation as a power grab.

Williams also accomplished his goal to improve the infrastructure of the state courts, including construction of the new Kent County Court House in Warwick and a new Traffic Tribunal building in Cranston. He also updated the courts’ computer system and improved courthouse security.

In yesterday’s interview it was clear that Williams was irked with his failure to persuade the General Assembly to support building a new courthouse in the Blackstone Valley. He noted that House Finance Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, questioned the $140-million cost but now supports public projects to stimulate the economy and reduce the state’s unemployment rate.

He also said he regrets his failure to establish a statewide domestic violence court.

Williams said he will continue to hear cases after his retirement to make sure that there will be a smooth transition for his successor. He said that he also will continue to mediate other cases in Superior Court, where he served as an associate judge for five years before moving to the high court.

He will also retain his position as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Military Commissions Review, which was formed to hear the appeals of military tribunal cases involving suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay. The court has never met and it is unclear whether it will continue to exist under the Obama administration.

As the state’s 50th chief justice, Williams had to cope with the death of two colleagues within four months –– Justice John P. Bourcier and Victoria Lederberg. Also, Justice Robert Flanders stepped down during Williams’ reign and returned to private practice.

Williams, with his direct approach reflecting his days as an Army captain in the Vietnam War, was a lightning rod for controversy.

He used his position as a bully pulpit to advocate for the state court system. Some embraced his public approach, while others, especially lawyers and some judges, privately scoffed at his willingness to speak to just about any group that would have him.

He cooked at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, read a blessing for the legal profession at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul and made appearances on local radio and television. His critics felt that his many public appearances –– 71 in his first year alone –– were unnecessary.

“Not everybody thought that was the right approach for a chief justice,” said Superior Court Presiding Justice Joseph F. Rodgers Jr.

Rodgers said that Williams’ predecessors held monthly meetings with the heads of the lower courts to hash over problems and administrative issues. But after holding a few of those meetings at the beginning of his tenure, Williams stopped convening them.

“We haven’t met, I bet, in five years as a group,” said Rodgers. “I’ve had very limited communications with him in the last five years.”

Rodgers said that “we were never close friends” but that he respected Williams as a jurist. As a trial judge on the Superior Court, he said, Williams was “an exceptionally hard worker.”

In January 2001, after five years as a trial justice on the Superior Court, Williams was nominated for chief justice by then-Gov. Lincoln C. Almond, a Republican.

Williams frequently placed himself in the middle of controversies.

In 2004, he acknowledged that he “inadvertently” used the opening paragraphs of a 1957 story in The Journal’s Sunday magazine in an article he wrote on Abraham Lincoln in 1993.

“I feel terrible, mortified, embarrassed,” Williams said at the time. “I take full responsibility for that.”

In 2005, he took down a personal Web site in which he had been soliciting paid speaking engagements. A court employee had been paid $1,500 to design the Web site that included many of Williams’ interests such as Doberman pinschers, Lincoln and cooking recipes.

In September, he was criticized for the use of 23-karat gold leaf in a renovation outside the Supreme Court offices in the Licht Judicial Complex, at a time when the state was grappling with severe budget problems.

Williams said he deliberately became more selective about his public appearances. Last year, for example, he was the commencement speaker at Oklahoma State University.

“I never sought the limelight for the sake of the limelight,” he said. “I wanted it to be for the honest good of the people.”

According to state law, the nine-member Judicial Nominating Commission will select three to five nominees to fill the vacancy. Governor Carcieri will then pick his choice from that list. The nominee must be confirmed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

–– With reports from staff writers Tracy Breton, Katie Mulvaney, Steve Peoples and Mike Stanton

bmalinow@projo.com