It’s not easy to catch a circuit judge with 25 years of experience by surprise, but that’s what happened Thursday at the Duval County Courthouse.
It required quite a bit of planning and secrecy on the part of his colleagues on the bench, staff, family and many friends, but it all worked when Circuit Judge Henry Davis entered Courtroom 611 and discovered the room filed with people for his retirement ceremony.
Chief Judge Mark Mahon said the subterfuge was necessary because Davis had made it clear he wanted to “retire quietly” and “he wouldn’t have come if he’d known what we were doing.”
As Mahon welcomed the guests to the ceremony, he outlined the plot.
Circuit Judge Adrian Soud invited Davis to lunch at Bono’s, but they had to stop by Soud’s courtroom where he had ostensibly left his car keys.
Mahon said retirement ceremonies usually are held in the ceremonial courtroom, but that might have tipped Davis off. So Soud’s foreclosure courtroom was chosen for the clandestine ceremony.
Davis walked into the room through the judge’s entrance and was shocked when he saw the standing-room-only crowd that yelled “surprise!”
Former Chief Judge Don Moran, who assigned Davis to the juvenile delinquency court about 10 years ago, said Davis has “left a real legacy” with the court.
“He’s part of the reason this circuit is so well thought of in the state,” said Moran.
Circuit Judge Pauline Drake met Davis in 1983 when he was a partner in a law firm that hired her as a summer intern.
They became friends and Davis watched Drake’s career advance as an attorney and later, as a judge.
“He was a mentor,” she said. “He taught me that I should find a cause, but he also told me ‘you can’t save the whole world.’”
As Drake concluded her remarks, she turned to Davis and said, “You will be missed, my friend.”
Davis said after coming to the courthouse for 25 years, it will be difficult to make the adjustment to not be in court every morning.
But he learned some important things while serving on the bench.
“Do what you can to make life better for children, make life better for all Americans,” Davis said. “With the Rule of Law, we can all live better lives.”
On Friday, Mahon said credit for the high level of secrecy should go to Marion Thomas, Davis’s judicial assistant, who kept the ceremony a secret from her boss, even though a couple of hundred people were invited.
“It was Marion scheming with Judge Soud,” he said. “I thought their plan was so good and I had a really good time.”
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