Read the full Florida Bar News write-up here.
Before he presented the 2024 Selig I. Goldin Memorial Award to retired Miami Circuit Judge Stanford Blake, Brian Tannebaum recalled their first meeting, more than 30 years ago.
Blake was a criminal defense attorney, and Tannebaum, a college student facing a felony possession charge, was his client. It worked out well for both.
“In 1995, I became a lawyer, and he became a judge, and he swore me in to The Florida Bar,” Tannebaum told friends and colleagues who gathered June 21 in an Orlando conference room to give Blake the Criminal Law Section’s highest honor.
Tannebaum would go on to a successful law career, serving on the executive council of the Criminal Law Section and the Criminal Procedure Rules Committee. Blake, his mentor, would go on to become one of the most popular judges in Miami-Dade County history.
Blake served as an assistant Miami-Dade public defender from 1973, the year he graduated from the University of Miami law school, until he opened his own practice in 1978. He was elected to the bench in 1995.
Blake dispensed justice with a rare blend of wit and compassion that endeared him to the community.
Along the way, Blake earned nearly every award the South Florida legal community could bestow, including Judge William Hoeveler Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. Three years earlier, South Florida lawyers rated Blake 99% “exceptionally qualified/qualified,” the highest recorded.
“Just to give you an example, he received 12 awards in the 22 years he was on the bench, basically, one every other year,” Tannebaum said.
The awards are tangible evidence of Blake’s unusually wide esteem, Tannebaum said.
“I thought his first name was ‘Love,’” Tannebaum said. “Because whenever anybody brings up Stan Blake, whether it was a defense attorney, or a prosecutor, that was always the response, ‘Love Stan Blake! Love Stan Blake!’”
Blake’s retirement in 2016 inspired a glowing Miami Herald tribute, “Beloved Judge Stanford Blake Retires After 22 Years.”
Tannebaum noted that the article quotes a former drug addicted defendant — “I’m here because of Stanford Blake” — who credits Blake for his recovery, and his success as a small business owner.
“So, today, I say, I’m here because of Stan Blake,” Tannebaum said. “He served with distinction for 22 years, and it is an honor to bestow the 2024 Selig I. Goldin Memorial Award to the Honorable Stanford Blake.”
Selig I Goldin, the award’s namesake, was a prodigy who graduated law school at 23 and became a legend in the Gainesville community for refusing to turn away clients, no matter how unpopular, and despite their inability to pay.
In a brief acceptance speech, leavened with his trademark humor, Blake thanked friends and colleagues by name, and noted that he has served on the Criminal Law Section committee that vetted previous recipients.
“I know what the Selig Goldin Award is, and I said, how was I to get this, I’m still alive?” he quipped, adding that it has gone to Supreme Court justices, and Florida Bar presidents. “I don’t think I’m in the same league.”
Goldin set a standard of excellence and service, Blake said, that Criminal Law Section members uphold every day.
“Being a public defender was the best job I ever had until I became a judge. What you do as prosecutors, public defenders, it’s so important. Being here, seeing all of you, it’s just very, very special.”
That dedication and spirit is especially important, Blake said, at a time when the criminal justice system is being publicly attacked by some of nation’s most powerful political figures.
The truth, Blake lamented, has “become an afterthought.”
“There are some who want to see the justice system go away, they want to see it gone, for their own personal beliefs, or for their own good,” he said. “You are the ones who keep it going.”
