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The SA governor was an unqualified judge

Source: The Governorship of Spanish Florida #122

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Ch. 3 The Governor Administers Justice

The governor of Florida had many varied duties. In vital matters such as defense and military organization, his experience on the battlefields of Europe, Africa, and the Indies served him sell; but for other administrative tasks he was not so well qualified. Military training simply did not equip him to assume all his responsibilities. In the administration of justice he was particularly inadequate. Acquainted only with the military style of justice, the governor had no training in civil or criminal law as practices in civilian courts. He lived in a world where military law prevailed, where justice was both stern and simple. The complicated legalistic procedures of civilian courts were outside the governor’s experience, and administration of justice ultimately proved one of his most bewildering and troublesome tasks.

The Theory and Practice of the Administration of Justice in Florida
Spanish law painstakingly laid down a judicial system for the entire colonial empire. The most important judicial body in the colonies was the audiencia, a court of twelve judges (more or less) sitting in criminal and civil sections (salas). During the colonial period audiencias were established in “Santo Domingo, Lima, Cuzco, Chile, Quito, Buenos Aires, Charcas, Caracas, New Granada, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Guadalajara, and Manila. These courts had original jurisdiction over the limited areas in which they sat, heard appeals from lesser colonial courts, and served as an advisory body for viceroys, captains general, and governors. Technically Florida fell under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia of Santo Domingo, but actually the legal connection was tenuous. Appeals from Saint Augustine usually went directly to the Council of the Indies in Spain, bypassing the appeals court in Santo Domingo.

There was also a provision for the administration of justice in towns, villages, and municipalities. Two magistrates (alcaldes) of the town council served as judges in the first hearing of both civil and criminal cases. A legal counsel (fiscal), similar to the English solicitor, and a prosecuting attorney (procurador) drew up and tried criminal cases. A defense attorney (defensor) acted for the accused. Lesser functionaries such as the constable (alguacil mayor), fine collector (receptor de penas), and the legal secretary (escribano) performed obvious tasks. In addition, an assessor (asesor) interpreted military law and drew up cases against soldiers; an auditor (auditor de guerra) served as a kind of provost marshal, advising local military authorities on legal questions and soldiers’ rights.

In Florida the judicial system bore little resemblance to that set up by royal law. In Saint Augustine there was no town council with magistrates to give first hearings on civil and criminal cases. No citizens or soldiers were qualified to fill the positions of prosecutor, defender, solicitor, assessor, or auditor, leaving the governor to provide makeshift substitutes. AN395 Usually the governor himself played the role of judge and prosecuting attorney (which surely must have given him an enviable record of convictions), and occasionally he called in a reluctant infantry, cavalry, or artillery captain to act as defense attorney. An infantry lieutenant or a squad of grenadiers served his purposes as a constable, and the public secretary—already overburdened with work—took depositions and transcribed testimony. But no substitutes were available for the assessor or the auditor, fundamental in a military outpost like Florida. These two officials absolutely required legal training, and no resident of Saint Augustine, including the governor, had even a smattering of the necessary legal experience.

This expediential arrangement for administering justice was a constant source of gubernatorial complaint.

…No amount of complaint or suggestion stirred the king or the Council into remedying the weaknesses of the Florida judicial system. No auditor, magistrate, or provost ever appeared in Saint Augustine to aid the governor in administering justice or in brining order to the judicial process. No classes in law were ever set up to train officers of the Florida garrison, and they remained unschooled in legal procedures. Throughout the 18th century the governor himself bore the responsibility of grappling with litigation after litigation without the advice or assistance of an experienced lawyer. Blundering through most cases, the governor found it difficult to administer justice according to traditional legal procedures. For their part the king and the Council did little to relieve this situation. They seemed to find it easier to censure the governor for his blunders than to give him the assistance needed to avoid them.

…The Governor Administers Justice: A Critique
The judicial process in Florida was clearly a makeshift arrangement. The governor administered justice at his own discretion and seldom adhered to normal judicial procedures laid down by Spanish law. If there was a basis for his methods, it could be found in his military experience, where the summary court-martial was common practice. Actually the military style of justice served well. It was both simple and expeditious and fitted the realities of colonial life. When the governor saw fit to use more formal procedures, the results were disastrous. When his superiors reviewed his attempts to administer justice according to normal practice, they found the litigations shot through with blunders, inadequacies, and illegalities that were the antithesis of justice. For the most part the governor was not responsible for his ineptitude. He had no trained lawyers or solicitors, no fiscals, auditors, or assessors to help him with his civil and criminal cases; and without legal training himself, he was severely hampered in his attempts to proceed according to the law. Justice ran its course in Florida, but the way was rough, circuitous, and full of pitfalls.

(Tepaske GSF)