After 400 judgments, Judge Samantha Ward tags the public service career

Tampa – Samantha Ward wanted to be a doctor. But a disgust for organic chemistry in her third year of University put her on the way to the Faculty of Law.

She thought she would be a career prosecutor but Later he had a long period as a public defender before becoming a judge.

With 15 years at the Bank, he is one of the most visible jurists of Hillsborough County, after having presided over more than 400 trials with jury and thousands of hearings, and issuing innumerable orders, orders and written opinions that shaped local law and lives.

Now another turn comes: she resigned.

Ward, who turns 60 this month, announced abruptly at the end of his last trial that the bank was leaving for an opportunity in private practice.

“Maybe I’m a guy from the band’s help,” he said.

Days later, he entered the elegant legal office of Armenia Avenue, George Lorenzo, an old friend and colleague. She will work there with Julianne Holt, the recently retired public defender and its former boss, as the firm expands its criminal defense work.

The measure marks a farewell to a long public service career that has put Ward at the forefront of some of the highest criminal cases of Tampa and fundamental legal problems.

It was one of Florida’s first judges to conclude in 2016 that the State could not seek capital penalty after the United States Supreme Court annulled the State Death Penalty Statute.

As an administrative judge, it was deeply involved in the preparation for a return to judgments in person during the Covid-19 pandemic, presiding over the first socially distanced jury procedure of Tampa.

She was the judge who managed the Case of serial murders of Seminole Heightspreparing a series of decisions that preceded their approval of an agreement that scored the accused four consecutive sentences of life imprisonment.

Although relieved of the duties always pressuring the Judiciary, she says she will miss him.

“I don’t think it’s fed up with being a judge,” he said. “That is a good concert.”

A military child discovers the law

Ward’s father was a career aviator. When growing, he got used to moving to a new base of the Air Force every few years. Military education infused an appreciation for rules and order.

The summer before his last year of high school, moved to the city of Panama and went to the University at the University of Florida.

When her chemistry qualifications fell, a friend who took classes of laws aroused her interest in talking about youth justice and the constitution of the United States. The university ended with a title of sociology and studied law at Florida State University.

A internship at the Hillsborough State Prosecutor’s Office took her to Tampa in 1989.

She gained early experience in homicide processing. In one case, she and her co-abogenous sought the death penalty against a man who had killed his wife. The victim’s little daughter had tried to call 911, without knowing that The man had cut the telephone line of the house. While Ward prepared to deliver a final discussion, his colleague intervened, fearing that he will be crying talking about the girl.

It was a learning experience.

“You try to be dispassionate,” he said. “Sometimes it is very difficult as a prosecutor, as a defense lawyer, as a judge.”

Ward always imagined herself as a prosecutor. But after his first boss, the deceased state prosecutor Bill James, lost his career for re -election in 1992, An invitation came from Holt, who was then the newly elected public defender: Come to work for me.

Holt recalled a case in which Ward caught a police officer who lied in the testimony prior to trial. Pavilion He quickly dropped the case.

“As a defense lawyer, you know prosecutors,” said Holt. “You know who prosecutors are not only intelligent, but are professionals.”

One day In 1993, while Holt was out of the city working on a trial for high profile murder, Ward moved to his office.

In one case, she worked with Lorenzo as her co-continues, Ward assured an acquittal for a 17 -year -old who had been mistakenly identified as the shooter in a case of murder attempt.

With Holt, he defended a man who faced the death penalty for stabbing another man during a robbery. They persuaded a jury to recommend a life imprisonment. Later he received a note written from the foreman, thanking him.

“His passion for justice and dignity were so obvious during the judgment judgment,” he wrote.

She keeps the note, still, in her wallet.

In the bank

In the early 2000s, Ward repeatedly requested being a judge. But as a tampa stranger with few political connections, it was transmitted by a governor appointment.

She lost an choice before running successfully in 2008.

He spent time managing divorce and family affairs before former main judge Ronald Ficarrotta placed her where she really wanted to be. During the last decade, he supervised the consecutive criminal trials, many of them homicides.

His presence in the bank was reserved, never rimbastic. Occasionally, however, he offered words of choice to those who were before her.

In one case, she criticized the state prosecutor for looking for a fine of 10 years against a man with a series of probation violations and a long criminal history.

“He is a threat to society is what it is,” he said before imposing the maximum of 15 years.

In another, he rebuked a defendant who claimed his lies before the police during what became a murder investigation was not intentional and did not deserve the time of the jail.

“That is the wrong answer,” Ward told him.

The most difficult cases were some that did not attract much public attention: cases with very young defendants who made terrible decisions and paid them with the rest of their lives.

“If you are a father, you know they don’t think about normal people,” he said. “I don’t like to sentence someone who is 20 years old to life imprisonment.”

His professional relationship with Holt was discussed among prosecutors in the case of Seminole Heights, Holt said. But it was never raised as a problem.

“I already had too much reputation in relation to justice,” said Holt. He added that Ward sometimes ruled against his office.

Ward said he intended to leave the bank when his mandate was in two years. But with a recently married child and a job offer that, according to her, will give her more personal flexibility, decided that now it was time. The governor will appoint his replacement.

She occupies one of the office suites in what used to be a region bank building that now houses Lorenzo and Lorenzo. The ancient Drive-Thru lanes of the bank are now a simulated magic, with the bank of a judge at one end. What used to be the bank’s vault is now a warehouse and a wet bar.

She has already met with some customers. She plans to work a few more years before retiring forever.

Now without bonds of judicial canons, Ward seems to be more Franco, particularly on issues of criminal justice. She has opinions about things like mandatory minimal sentences and judicial discretion and civil rights, and now has the right to express them.

Behind his desk, a paint framed of an ancient scene of a tunic and chained woman hangs on a wall.

Below are the replicas of Ward of the Statue of Liberty. No less than 11 photos and models of Lady Liberty hung from her courtroom. They appeared periodically at the bottom of the news coverage of the murders, along with their posters by John F. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Martin Luther King Jr.

The unusual and extravagant decoration of the court carried a message, to litigants and spectators and for itself, about justice and do the right thing.

“That’s what I was there to do,” he said.