Today we're featuring Judge William O. Mehrtens. Longtime district court judge (served 15 years). Double Gator. Served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy during World War II. Best remembered for his important opinion backing treasure hunter Mel Fischer in his dispute with the State of Florida over the wreck of a 17th-century Spanish galleon carrying hundreds of millions in treasure. Case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which mostly affirmed Mehrtens's ruling. Check out that opinion here. I like this quote: "As grave as the perils of sea are and were, the gravest perils to the treasure itself came not from the sea but from two unlikely sources. Agents of two governments, Florida and the United States, who have the highest responsibility to protect rights and property of citizens, claimed the treasure as belonging to the United States and Florida."
FBA write up below.
Judge William O. Mehrtens was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson and served on the district court from 1965-1980. Prior to his judicial service, Judge Mehrtens served in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II. In Treasure Salvors, Inc. v. Unidentified Wrecked & Abandoned Sailing Vessel, 459 F. Supp. 507 (S.D. Fla. 1978), Judge Mehrtens ruled that Treasure Salvors, Inc. retained exclusive rights to treasure, including “gold, silver, artifacts, and armament” salvaged from the sunken Spanish vessel Nuestra Señora de Atocha, rejecting Florida’s competing ownership claims.
2 comments:
These quick bios about judges of yesteryear are a good window into an era that, unfortunately, no longer exists. Rare was the judge who had not served in the military in some capacity. That experience provided a perspective and shared experience. Political ideology, to the extent it even existed, was not determined by which party a judge belonged to. Remember, the two most liberal judges of the '50's, Warren and Brenna were Ike appointees and one of the dissenters in Roe v Wade, Byron White, was a JFK nominee. And speaking of White, does anyone seriously think we will ever have a former NFL running back sit on the Supreme Court again?
My favorite Judge Mehrtens story is the night that the judge and his wife were dining with Judge Atkins and his wife, about the time that Judge Mehrtens was taking senior status. He mused that he was thinking about working three or four hours per day, at which time his wife said: "The vow was for better or worse, not for lunch. I do not care what you do as long as you do not come home before 5."
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