Robin Hood Of the Bench
Some gothic politics in backwater Florida
In the Gulf County, Fla., courtroom of Judge David Taunton these pastfour years, the rule of law has been compassion for the poor. When anappliance company tried to repossess a washing machine from a black manwith no job, a wooden leg and seven children, Judge Taunton reachedinto his pocket and paid the defendant's $97 overdue bill himself.Without being subpoenaed, he appeared as a character witness for a manconvicted of drunken driving who was trying to get his license back sohe could take his wife to the hospital for cancer treatments. To sparea penniless 18-year-old loan delinquent, Taunton refused to enter thefinal judgment in favor of the loan company.
"Robin Hood Judge," the mostly approving state press called him. But thestate's Judicial Qualifications Commission charged Taunton, 39, with"conduct unbecoming a member of the judiciary" and a year ago sought tohave him removed from the bench. The judge's compassion verged on bias,agreed the Florida Supreme Court last March, but it let Taunton offwith a reprimand, calling his motives "wholesome and unselfish."Taunton is not a lawyer. A former high school principal and Methodistlay minister, he defends his leniency to the poor by quoting the Bible:"As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you didit to me." He also admits to a "tendency to give the poor party thebenefit of the doubt." But Taunton declares that playing good shepherdto indigent defendants was not the real reason why he almost lost hisjob. "Uncovering" corruption was.
To hear the soft-spoken judge tell the story, when he became the judgeof Gulf County he waded into a backwater Watergate. Aland of slash pines, Cyprus swamps and oldtime backroom politics, ithas been the fiefdom of U.S. Representative Robert Sikes,who last year was stripped of a congressional subcommittee chairmanshipbecause of financial misconduct. Taunton publicly charged that formerState Senator George Tapper engaged in an "elaborate, corrupt politicalscheme" with StateRepresentative William J. Rish, Sikes and others to profitfrom intricate land deals at the public's expense. A stateinvestigation turned up no evidence of wrongdoing, however, and a GulfCounty grand jury exonerated everyone accused by the judge. SaysTaunton: "It was a whitewash."
Only three months later the judge was hauled before the JudicialQualifications Commission. In addition to the charge of bending the lawto favor the poor, Taunton was accused of using his public office tomuckrake and of spending public funds to make hisinvestigations. "Judge Taunton is a right nice fella," John Wigginton,general counsel to the commission, told the St. Petersburg Times. "It'sjust that he's got what seems to be a deep-seated fetish about poorpeople. We feel he ought to be doing something else for a living—likewelfare work, or social work, or anything other than being a judge."
This week the people of Gulf County have a chance to decide forthemselves whether David Taunton should stay on the bench. He isrunning for re-election against Robert Moore, a lawyer who filed aslander suit against Taunton on behalf of one of the men the judgecharged with suspect land dealings. Moore has been drumming up supportfrom local merchants who would like to see Taunton ousted. He has alsoinvested $150 in a red-white-and-blue floodlighted billboard on themain highway to Tallahassee. The Robin Hood Judge, meanwhile, washand-painting campaign posters with his wife and teen-age son backat—what else—his log cabin home. ·
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