Peggy A. Quince

1948—

Judge, lawyer

In 1998 Peggy A. Quince made Florida history when she became the first African-American woman to serve as a justice on her state's supreme court. Just twenty years earlier, her appearance in the state's high court had been somewhat of a rarity, for there were few female African-American trial lawyers or prosecutors in Florida in the 1970s. In 2000 Quince found herself in an unexpected role as one of the key players in the contested 2000 presidential election during the controversy over several thousand Florida ballots.

Quince was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1948, and she grew up as one of six children raised by a single parent. Her father, Solomon Quince, was a longshoreman who worked at Norfolk's port facilities, and he had a profound influence on her. She told Alan Judd of the Sarasota Herald Tribune, "He told me two things that I have always tried to live by. To get an education and to work as hard as you can." As a youngster, Quince had to go to bed at 8:30 p.m. because she had to board a school bus early in morning; if she or any of her siblings missed that bus, their father was already at work, so there was no way to get to school. They lived in a rural part of Norfolk, and the nearest school available to them was some distance away, for Virginia still had a deeply segregated educational system during her youth. She recalled her father explaining to her that the recent 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court ruling meant that she could attend an integrated school, but local districts in the state fought the decision and did not become fully integrated until just before her senior year. She chose to stay at the all-black Crestwood High School and graduated from it in 1966.

Quince went on to Howard University in Washington, DC, and earned an undergraduate degree in zoology in 1970. Opting for law school, she won a scholarship to the Catholic University of America, also in the District of Columbia, and finished there in 1975. Her first job was as a hearings officer for the municipal authority that oversaw the implementation of new rent-control laws in the federal capital. She entered private practice in 1977 and moved to Florida a year later with her husband of two years, whom she had met in law school. They settled in the Bradenton area, and in 1980 she left private practice to take a job with the criminal division of the Florida state attorney general's office. She later became the chief of the Tampa bureau while still arguing regularly on behalf of the state in court proceedings, many of them capital offenses whose defendants were subject to the death-penalty sentence.

In 1993 Lawton Chiles, the Florida governor, appointed Quince to fill a judicial vacancy on Florida's Second District Court of Appeals in Lakeland. Again, she dealt primarily with death-penalty issues, and three years later she successfully stood for election to hold onto her seat. Chiles, a Democrat, died in the final month of his second term, but he and Jeb Bush, the Republican governor-elect, had already reached a compromise to fill a vacancy on the Florida Supreme Court by choosing Quince. When Chiles made the announce- ment of her appointment, he deemed it a "historic day for Florida," Judd quoted him as saying. "This court now truly reflects our state's diversity." Jeb Bush concurred, noting that of the four names submitted for the judgeship, "one stood out above all others," Bush said of Quince. "She'll make an extraordinary justice."

On the Florida high court, Quince serves as part of a seven-member panel that deals with death-penalty cases as well as other grave matters. In 2004 it became embroiled in the case of Terri Schiavo, a woman who had been in a vegetative state since 1990 and whose husband had petitioned for the removal of her feeding tube over the objection of his in-laws. A lower court ruled in his favor, but the Florida legislature passed "Terri's Law," which gave Governor Bush the authority to intervene in the matter of guardianship. Quince and the other justices deemed the law invalid. Two years later, Quince and her fellow justices again ruled that the Florida legislature had overstepped its authority in creating a school voucher plan for the state, which had been the first of its kind in the nation.

However, the Florida Supreme Court's most dramatic decision came in the wake of the disputed 2000 presidential election. In the quandary over electoral votes versus popular votes in an extremely close race between the Democratic contender Vice President Al Gore and the Republican candidate George W. Bush—the brother of Florida's governor—Quince and her fellow justices were called on to determine whether a recount of the popular vote was necessary, and under what terms that recount would be conducted. Their first ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and while their second decision was careful not to overstep its authority in deciding election matters, their ruling that hand-counted tallies in some precincts could be included in the final ballot toll was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on December 9, in effect forcing Gore to concede to Bush. Some constitutional scholars and legal analysts felt that the higher court had transgressed on a state's authority in this case, but Quince was diplomatic in her response when asked about the matter. "I don't focus on that our decision was overturned," she told Stephanie Mojica in the Virginian-Pilot. "I see that a state court had the rare opportunity to participate so actively in a case that affected the entire country. I followed my oath, set politics aside, and that's all a judge can do."

Quince has won numerous professional honors for her long record of public service and judicial impartiality, including the 2002 William H. Hastie Award from the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association, the leading legal organization for African-American attorneys, and the Florida Women's Hall of Fame Award in 2007. She and her husband, Fred L. Buckine, have two grown daughters. When they wed as recent law-school graduates in 1976, many southern states were still coming to terms with an era of full civil rights for African Americans, including a new, more fully integrated legal system in which black lawyers and judges were beginning to play a role. When asked about her remarkable rise to the bench of the state's highest court, Quince reflected that her success was partly attributable to the fact "that I did not have any kind of agenda, any personal agenda, to push here," she told Troy Kinsey of Central Florida News 13. "I wanted to do and hopefully have done what I believe is in the best interest of the people of the State of Florida."

At a Glance …

Born Peggy A. Quince in 1948 in Norfolk, VA; daughter of Solomon Quince; married Fred L. Buckine (an attorney and judge), April 19, 1976; children: Peggy Laverne Buckine and Laura Laverne Buckine. Politics: Democrat. Education: Howard University, BS, zoology, 1970; Catholic University of America, JD, 1975.

Career: Rental Accommodations Office of the District of Columbia, hearings officer, 1975-77; attorney in private practice, 1977-80; Florida Attorney General's Office, Criminal Division, assistant attorney general, Tampa bureau chief, 1980-93; Florida Second District Court of Appeals, judge, 1993-98; Florida Supreme Court, justice, 1998—.

Memberships: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Florida Bar Association, National Bar Association, Urban League.

Awards: William H. Hastie Award, Judicial Council of the National Bar Association, 2002; Southern Women in Public Service Pacesetter Award, 2003; Outstanding Jurist and Howard University Alumna Award, 2003; Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, 2006; Florida Women's Hall of Fame Award, 2007.

Addresses: Office—Florida Supreme Court, 500 S. Duval St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-1925.

Sources

Periodicals

Sarasota Herald Tribune, December 9, 1998, p. 1A.

Tampa Tribune, December 9, 1998, p. 1.

Virginian-Pilot, September 3, 2001, p. B1.

Online

"Justice Peggy A. Quince," Florida Supreme Court,http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/justices/quince.shtml (accessed June 13, 2008).

Kinsey, Troy, "Justice Peggy Quince: A Picture of Success," Central Florida News 13,http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2007/2/18/peggy_quince.html (accessed June 13, 2008).

"2006 Margaret Brent Awards," American Bar Association,http://www.abanet.org/women/bios/quince.pdf (accessed June 13, 2008).

—Carol Brennan