It isn’t a surprise: Circuit Judge Terence Perkins had said openly during a hearing recess in 2022 that he would be retiring in 2024. He’d even started a 600-day countdown clock. It must’ve lost power a few times, because it had been set for last January, raising some hopes that the judge had–as many around him wished–changed his mind.
But today, the inevitable was made official, dashing hopes and deflating spirits across the Seventh Judicial Circuit: the 68-year-old judge will retire on Sept. 30, six years after taking over a bench that couldn’t keep a judge for more than a couple of years. He’d been the sixth judge serving on Flagler’s felony bench in eight years. Always a workhorse, he added the civil docket to his duties. And he made a pledge at the time. He said he intended to serve in Flagler until his retirement.
He stuck to the pledge, and became the longest-serving judge in that spot since the retirement of Kim Hammond, the late judge for whom the courthouse is named. Perkins had followed Judges Hammond, Raul Zambrano, J. David Walsh, Matthew Foxman and Dennis Craig. But for the carving in the granit facade of the building along State Road 100 in Bunnell, it had become Perkins’s courthouse: becalmed and respected after a brief period of turmoil just before Perkins’s arrival, largely due to a civil court judge who was eventually ousted by the Supreme Court for misconduct.
Flagler’s bench hasn’t lacked for forceful, distinctive and increasingly distinguished judges: Circuit Judge Chris France presides over family court and part of the rest of the civil docket. Judges Melissa Distler and Andrea Totten preside over County Court.
Their reaction to the retirement would likely find an echo in State Attorney R.J. Larizza’s. “I worked closely with Judge Perkins when he was the Chief Judge of the 7th Circuit,” Larizza said today. “I found him to be generous, honest and gracious. We became friends. Judge Perkins epitomizes the highest qualities and character of our best and brightest Jurists. He is kind, considerate and caring. He dignifies the bench with humility and grace. While he is intellectually gifted, he is never condescending or smug. He has the ability to communicate and connect personally with all the folks who appear in his Courtroom. He is a rare gem amongst a formidable group and I will miss him greatly.”
Perkins has a judicial temperament from central casting, a sparkling intelligence free of presumption and–often to lawyer’s relief or exasperation–a trenchant ability to synthesize legal precedents and concepts. Lawyers arguing before him quickly learn the futility of attempting to outsmart him, though he prizes sound challenges and well-prepared arguments. They also know that they can depend on one of the most learned and punctilious minds in the circuit: he is an obsessive note-taker and researcher.
Beyond all that, he’s had a knack for innovations–the paperless system he ushered in as chief judge, and in Flagler, one of the most advanced and continuing live-video systems in the state, enabling broader access to the court. He advocated for modernization as a member of the Florida Court Technology Commission. As the senior judge in Flagler, he applies a light hand, prizing decorum and civility but not rules for the sake of rules. His bailiffs learned to reflect his temperament, and families and friends of victims or the accused are always treated with equal respect and understanding, if also with Perkins’s understated ability to control his courtroom: before or during tense trials, he would typically approach the families and gently, forcefully caution them, with deft pre-emptive skill, that they were not attending a contest, and that there never are winners and losers in these proceedings.
There was the occasional rebel. One defendant given permission to have his sentencing delayed so he could get his affairs in order, on bail, still left the courtroom last fall in a huff and spat in the elevator, unaware that video surveillance was on. Perkins was not pleased, especially since the defendant followed that up with new crimes and a new arrest on 12 additional charges. What had been a negotiated 30-month prison sentence turned into a 10-year sentence. (See: “It’s Not a Good Idea to Spit at the Court Ahead of Your Sentencing. Dacotah Clarke Now Faces Up to 17.5 Years.”)
“We’re all wondering what our work lives will be like without having him around to share his insights and wisdom,” Leah Case, Chief Judge of the Seventh Judicial Circuit was quoted as saying in a release issued by the circuit this afternoon. “I know he has a variety of personal pursuits on which he can now focus his attention, but we’ll all miss him a great deal. The Seventh Judicial Circuit and its citizens are losing a dedicated jurist who gave each case the individual attention it deserved and was always willing to take time to advise and counsel his fellow judges. I hope he’ll consider returning as a senior judge.”
It will be up to the chief judge to name a replacement to the Flagler bench from within the judges in the Seventh Judicial Circuit, which includes Flagler, St. Johns, Volusia and Putnam. It could be France. It could be someone else. There are 27 circuit judges, any of whom could be rotated into any court in the district, and 17 county judges.
But the vacancy the retirement creates in the circuit will be filled by gubernatorial appointment, following the nominating process conducted by the circuit’s Judicial Nominating Commission–a more rigorously political than analytical process since the commissions were stripped of their independence by former Gov. Jeb Bush and turned into little more than gubernatorial vassals.
The release from the circuit summarized Perkins’s history: An undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Florida, admittance to the Florida Bar in 1981, and a 30-year career in private practice with Monaco, Smith, Hood, Perkins, Orfinger, and Stout before a gubernatorial appointment as Circuit Judge in 2010. (The release doesn’t name the governor: Charlie Crist.) He was subsequently elected in 2012 and reelected in 2018 without opposition. Perkins served in the Civil and Felony divisions in Volusia before moving to Flagler, where he has also been presiding over Drug Court every Thursday morning. His peers elected him Chief Judge in the circuit from 2013 to 2017.
Joe D says
A TRUE VISIONARY…best wishes for a relaxing retirement….now, lets hope his successor is as talented.
The People's Gripe says
More of a critique of the system versus Judge Perkins, but allowing a judge to precide over criminal AND small claims civil cases seems assinine. That person has to pivot by the minute from managing a capitol murder to someone fighting a cable bill. There was a prepensity to favor the lawyers in the civil cases seemingly since they made their job “easier”. Judge Judy he was not and if you weren’t in front of him with your law degree you didn’t have a voice. Literally he would allow lawyers, on the phone no less, talk over without repercusion. I witnessed it time and again, and it felt like little rinky dink Flagler County was saught out by unscrupulous insurance companies, debt collectors, etc. and their lawyers so long as the judges here were eager to pass summary judgements like they pass gas in order to free up their dockets. So thank you for your service. Now put a bug in some ears and try not to allow happen what you signed up for and allowed to happen. Assign judges either criminal or civil, not both.
Concerned Citizen says
Glad to see him go.
He has a long history of sentencing serious crimes lightly. Maybe will can get someone in there. That’s not afraid of the pedo’s.
HAPOS says
Yeah, yeah yeah we’ve heard this bullshit before. He should’ve been off the bench a long time ago. Trust me won’t be missed. He has very poor control over his courtroom and Lets the court deputies do as they please it looks like a fucking kangaroo court. Perkins tells everybody he’s going to reduce their court fees by turning them to a civil judgment when that’s not reducing anything. It’s putting someone in a position to have a judgment, put against them to where their assets can be taken away to satisfy the cost at the later date, but he doesn’t tell the people that. Perkins has very little order in his court room as well. The signs on the door say no gum or candy or drinks, but it ain’t given time when you go in there there’s nine people between prosecutors and public defenders and deputies that have glasses or bottles of drinks. Do the rules and laws only apply to some? Do they not want cell phones on because they fear someone may expose how inept and corrupt Flagler County is??? Again, Deputy sit there and scroll on their cell phones and have the audacity to get up and say something to a member of the public for reading theirs quietly. I have yet to see a public defender, defend a client and it’s despicable that the prosecution threatens those accused with severe prison sentences. Should they take their case to trial. That’s not justice. Bottom line is the state doesn’t want to prepare for a trial and probably knows they’ll be exposed if cases go to trial, so they threaten the accused. Judge Perkins sees all this and turns the blind eye. That’s not an honorable man.
Anonymous says
Talented?!? I have yet to see. He let a serial abuser of women and children go with a slap on the wrist. (John Cascone- surgeon at Advent) As you would expect, he has beaten and abused his new wife and child. Yet AGAIN, he has brutally attacked women. All because Perkins let him off the first time. I’m expecting that will happen again and Perkins will give him another slap on the wrist with a $50 fine this time. Hopefully the case will be delayed long enough to get a descent judge in criminal court…one who will actually make a difference BEFORE the criminal kills someone.
Pogo says
@Give us Barabbas (and thank you, Joe D)
Gratitude is one of the greatest Christian virtues; ingratitude, one of the most vicious sins. Our creativity, our inner sense of right and wrong, our ability to love and to reason—all bear witness to the fact that God created us in His image.
— Billy Graham
This secular humanist says thank you, to the Honorable Judge Perkins.
Tired says
Don’t let the door hit you in the @$$ on the way out judge! Just yesterday, he sentenced a habitual drug offender to 30 months for probation violation after he originally sentenced the offender to probation – which he then abused. For what? Selling fentanyl to an undercover deputy!! We need judges with a backbone to uphold the law against these habitual offenders!
Justme says
I saw the inside of Judge Perkins’ courtroom for the first time when a few adolescents were charged with tampering with construction equipment. Judge Perkins saw through the lies of the adult charging the youth in a heartbeat. It had been a terrifying experience until we saw this judge was wise, fair, and honorable. This could have gone horribly wrong and negatively impacted innocent kids for years to come. Serving on the jury in later years reaffirmed my respect for this man. Best wishes for a well deserved retirement.