Saturday, October 31, 2009

It was recently reported that the Key West federal courthouse is being renamed in honor and memory of Judge Sidney M. Aronovitz, and that one of his most important cases involved the release from seizure of the commercial fishing boats after the Mariel Boatlift in 1980.

The "Freedom Flotilla" occurred in April and May of 1980 and, on behalf of four fishermen, I filed the case against the government that was assigned to Judge Aronovitz. It was not much different than the Flotilla cases filed by other lawyers. What was different, and led to my success, was luck of the draw. My case, Pollgreen v. Morris, was assigned to Judge Aronovitz. I remember standing in the hallway near the closed door of his Miami chambers after filing the complaint and emergency motion for preliminary injunction, overhearing the judge argue with another judge who had a similar case just assigned to him.

The other judge believed this was an internationally sensitive political matter with which the judiciary should not interfere. Judge Aronovitz asserted that, when politics threaten the vital rights of citizens, it is the duty of the judiciary to protect them. He promptly held an injunction hearing, ruled that his court had "neither the willingness nor the competence to interject itself into the arena of immigration policy, except insofar as such a policy runs afoul of constitutional and statutory safeguards, as is the case here." Also, that "to conclude otherwise would amount to a finding that due process stops at the water's edge." The temporary injunction he issued resulted in the release from seizure of all of the more than 2,000 commercial fishing boats by the end of June.

But it didn't end there. After making the injunction permanent in 1984, the government continued to seek from the fishermen $1,000 for each of the more than 100,000 Cuban nationals they had transported. Judge Aronovitz repeatedly ruled for the boat owners, and the government appealed all his rulings. The case went on for nearly 12 years, finally concluding late in 1991. Sticking to his guns wasn't the easy way, but he did.

In the cynical world of law, it's all too often just about who gets money from whom and we always need to consider the politics and how that might alter the ruling. Instead, he kept the case about the real stuff, the reasons we wanted to be lawyers in the first place.

While Judge Aronovitz's name on the courthouse may be recognition of his great cases, it more importantly honors and recalls the marks of excellence, integrity and courage he set. Most of us will never reach those marks, but I'll be happy to regularly see his name on the building and be reminded that those marks are up there and that they're where we should be aiming.

Diane Tolbert Covan is a former Key West city attorney who now has a private law practice in the city.