James David Whittemore | |
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| Senior Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Middle District of Florida | |
| Assumed office August 29, 2017 | |
| Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Middle District of Florida | |
| In office May 25, 2000 – August 29, 2017 | |
| Appointed by | Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | William Terrell Hodges |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Barber |
| Judge of theHillsborough County Circuit Court for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida | |
| In office 1990–2000 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James David Whittemore[1] (1952-08-29)August 29, 1952 (age 73)[1] |
| Spouse | Martha K. Watford[1] |
| Education | University of Florida (BSBA) Stetson University (JD) |
James David Whittemore (born August 29, 1952) is aseniorUnited States district judge serving in theTampa division of theUnited States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. He was previously a Florida state trial court judge, afederal public defender, and an attorney in private practice who won a criminal case before theUnited States Supreme Court. As a federal judge, Whittemore presided over a number of high-profile cases, including a lawsuit againstMajor League Baseball to challenge itsdraft procedure, and theTerri Schiavo case, after theUnited States Congress had specifically given the Middle District of Floridajurisdiction to hear the seven-year-long fight over whether the brain-damaged Schiavo should be taken offlife support.
Whittemore was born inWalterboro, South Carolina. He graduated with honors from theUniversity of Florida in 1974 with aBachelor of Science in Business Administration degree, and then received hisJuris Doctor fromStetson University Law School in 1977. He briefly worked at Bauer, Morlan & Wells, a small law firm inSt. Petersburg, Florida, before becoming one of the original four federal public defenders in the Middle District of Florida in 1978. Whittemore returned to private practice inTampa three years later as an associate at Whittemore & Seybold, and then at Whittemore & Campbell from 1982 until 1987. In 1985, Whittemore successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court inWainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284 (1986), that a criminal suspect's silence after he received theMiranda warning could not be used at trial to discredit hisinsanity defense. Whittemore's client had been convicted ofsexual battery; the Court's ruling secured him a new trial. From 1987 until 1990, Whittemore was a sole practitioner in Tampa.
In 1990, Whittemore was elected to the bench of theHillsborough County Circuit Court in the Florida Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, and remained on the court until 2000. He was named the 1998 Jurist of the Year by the Hillsborough CountyBar Association, and Outstanding Jurist of 1999 by the Florida Bar's Young Lawyers Division.
After recommendation by both of Florida's United States Senators,DemocratBob Graham andRepublicanConnie Mack III, he was nominated by PresidentBill Clinton to a new seat[note 1] in the Florida Middle District Court on October 20, 1999. Whittemore was confirmed unanimously by theUnited States Senate on May 24, 2000, and received his commission the following day. He assumedsenior status on August 29, 2017.
On June 4, 2001, Whittemore ruled againstRolando Viera, aCubanbaseball pitcher who was attempting toenjoin Major League Baseball from including him in itsamateur draft so that he could instead be afree agent. Viera, represented by attorneyAlan Gura and agentJoe Kehoskie, had claimed that the MLB draft was discriminatory because it had a different residency requirement for Cubans, but Whittemore decided that whatever financial loss Viera suffered from being subject to the draft did not satisfy the federal injunction requirement ofirreparable harm. Viera was picked by theBoston Red Sox that same week in the seventh round of the draft.
Whittemore presided over the criminal trial of Gerald and Betty Payne, the founders of Greater Ministries International Church. Over $450 million was bilked from church followers in the Paynes' fraudulent investment scheme, which was billed as one of the largestPonzi schemes in United States history. Whittemore sentenced Gerald to 27 years for conduct he called "absolutely despicable." Betty was sentenced to over 12 years, which was increased from what Whittemore initially considered after she repeated a claim they were the innocent victims of government persecution and their religious freedoms were being violated. "It's one thing to have blind faith," Whittemore told her. "It's quite another to cast yourself as a martyr for no apparent good. I just deliberated a matter that you could serve 33 months less. What you've just done is throw that right back in my face."
| Articles relating to the |
| Terri Schiavo case |
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| Others involved |
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Whittemore was randomly assigned to hear theTerri Schiavo case, a longstanding conflict between Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, over whether she should be removed fromlife support. The Schindlers disputed that their daughter was in apersistent vegetative state or that she would have wanted to have life support withdrawn, but Schiavo, his expert witnesses, and court-appointed physicians had successfully argued the contrary beforeFlorida trial court judge,George Greer. The case had worked its way through Florida state courts since 1998, was deniedreview four times by theUnited States Supreme Court, and was unsuccessfully challenged by theFlorida Legislature before Schiavo's feeding tube was ordered removed for the third time by Judge Greer. Shortly after midnight on March 21, 2005, theUnited States Congress passed an unprecedented law that gave the Middle District of Florida jurisdiction over the matter without anyregard to previous state court decisions.
While protesters demonstrated outside his courthouse, Whittemore conducted ahearing on the Schindler's amendedcomplaint[note 2] the same day the law was passed, but adjourned without issuing any orders as Schiavo's feeding tube remained removed for the third day. On March 22, Whittemore issued a thirteen-page ruling that denied atemporary restraining order (TRO) to replace the tube. As appropriate for the federal standard of review for a TRO motion, his ruling avoided the issue of whether the Congressional grant of jurisdiction was unconstitutional, as Michael Schiavo and most legal scholars had argued. Though three of the four elements of the federal TRO standard, including irreparable harm, were clearly satisfied by Schiavo's imminent death, Whittemore did not believe the Schindlers ultimately had a substantial likelihood of prevailing, but instead found each of their claims "without merit." Because thedue process andequal protection violations alleged in the Schindler's complaint were premised primarily on the procedures and orders in the Florida court proceedings, the state court history had to be considered by Whittemore despite the language of the congressional act, which called for ade novo review. Whittemore stated that the issues they raised had been "exhaustively litigated" and that Judge Greer had appropriately fulfilled his role as a judge under Florida and federal law. TheEleventh Circuit affirmed Whittemore's "carefully thought-out decision" in a 2-1 ruling on March 23,[2] and denied rehearingen banc later the same day, 10–2.[2] The United States Supreme Court also denied a stay without recorded dissent on March 24.[3]
The Schindlers returned to Whittemore's courtroom, again amended their complaint to add claims based on theAmericans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), theRehabilitation Act of 1973, and theEighth Amendment, and filed an amended motion for a TRO. Whittemore conducted a hearing on the motion the evening of March 24. When one of the Schindlers' attorneys described the removal of the feeding tube as "murder", Whittemore responded "[t]hat is the emotional rhetoric of this case. It does not influence this court and cannot influence this court. I want you to know it, and I want the public to know it." During the hearing, the protesters that still surrounded the area outside the courthouse were temporarily evacuated, so that law enforcement could detonate a suspicious bag that turned out to be harmless. The hearing proceeded inside without interruption, and lasted around four hours.
In an order issued the morning of March 25, Whittemore denied the Schindlers' amended motion. Regarding their ADA claim, Whittemore wrote that the law was inapplicable because Mr. Schiavo and the hospice in care of Terri Schiavo did not fall under the Act's definition of "public entities", nor was the withdrawal of the feeding tube based on discrimination against Schiavo on the basis of her disability. Their claim under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was similarly flawed, in that no discrimination was present, and the United States Supreme Court had previously ruled that the Act did not apply to medical decisions. Their Eighth Amendment claim was also rejected by Whittemore, because the amendment's prohibition oncruel and unusual punishment did not apply outside of criminal sanctions. Whittemore closed his order by conveying the court's "appreciation for the difficulties and heartbreak the parties have endured through this lengthy process." A panel of the same three Circuit judges who heard the first appeal affirmed his decision once again on March 25, with the judge who had previously dissented concurring in this second opinion.[2] Rehearing was once again denied by the Eleventh Circuit on March 30,[2] and the Supreme Court also once again denied a stay the same day. The case ended with Schiavo's death on the morning of March 31.
Schiavo ex rel. Schindler v. Schiavo
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| Preceded by | Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Middle District of Florida 2000–2017 | Succeeded by |
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