Legendary DeLand attorney Joe Scarlett dies

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Slowing down, a little — In 2008, Joe Scarlett stopped trying cases, but he wasn't ready to retire.

BEACON FILE PHOTO
Learned lawyer — Attorney Joseph Alexander Scarlett III strikes a dignified pose in front of his law library. Scarlett was admitted to all Florida courts, the United States Supreme Court, the United States District Court, and the Middle District of Florida, and had certification by the Supreme Court of Florida in all courts of mediation.

BEACON FILE PHOTO
50 years of law — Joe Scarlett is feted upon the 50th anniversary of his entry into law practice, in 2003.

BEACON PHOTO/BARB SHEPHERD
Another sad day — Joe Scarlett, right, is escorted by Beacon reporter Al Everson and another mourner at the funeral of Grover Ashcraft in 2006.

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Busy office — Joe Scarlett relaxes in his office in 2008.

By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Jun 30, 2009 - 5:27:25pm

Legendary DeLand attorney Joseph Scarlett III died Sunday evening, June 28. He was 79.

Services are planned Friday, July 3: A graveside service at 9:30 a.m. in Oakdale Cemetery, and a memorial service afterward in Courtroom No. 1 upstairs in the Volusia County Historic Courthouse, 125 W. New York Ave., are both open to all. Pastor Bill Yesse will officiate. Following the service, the family will receive friends at the Scarlett home, Sol Y Sombra, on North Stone Street in DeLand.

Lankford is in charge. A complete obituary will appear in an upcoming print edition of The Beacon.

In honor of his passing, the newspaper offers this interview with Scarlett, written by Pat Hatfield and first published in May 2008:

Attorney Joe Scarlett talks about retiring, and his office building on West Howry Avenue is up for sale. But after 56 years, this legendary legal wrangler isn't ready to lie down.

He has a reputation for being crusty, opinionated, loud and brash.

But even his critics would agree those who need an advocate are well-served when Joseph Scarlett III takes up their defense.

Emphysema has quashed his colorful court appearances, but Scarlett doesn't plan to forget any clients who need help.

"I have files going back to 1952," he said.

That year, Scarlett graduated from the Stetson University School of Law, which was then located in DeLand, and opened his practice.

Over five decades, he's practiced all kinds of law, turning away only personal-injury cases.

Born at DeLand Memorial Hospital on Stone Street, Scarlett grew up on the nearby family spread bounded by Orange Avenue and Stone Street. The Scarlett home was open and hospitable, frequently full of friends.

Scarlett followed his father's footsteps into a legal career.

Retired State Attorney and former judge Dan Warren knew both father and son. He was a friend and sometimes competitor of the younger Scarlett.

"Joe is one of those true legends in Volusia County, a great trial lawyer, and one of the greatest legal strategists I ever saw," Warren said.

During the early days of the two friends' legal careers, attending a jury trial was a form of popular entertainment.

"The courtroom was always full," Warren recalled. "People came to see and hear Joe. Joe really put on a show, but did it in a way that was convincing to the jury. It wasn't just show - he had sincerity. ... He could home in on facts that would make the difference with a jury. He had an uncanny ability to do that."

Warren beat Scarlett in a race for the office of State Attorney in 1964, but the biggest argument the two friends ever had, Warren said, was over a murder case they co-defended.

"I wanted to put the defendant on the witness stand, but Joe didn't want to do that, so I finally went along with Joe. It turned out that was the best strategy," Warren said.

Warren didn't know anyone in DeLand when he came here to attend law school in the late 1940s. He met Joe and became a frequent visitor at the Scarlett home. Warren got his law degree six months ahead of Scarlett.

"He's been a good friend. We were always competitive, but in the final analysis, we were always friends. We were competitive," Warren said.

Joe Scarlett III has kept the family commitment to hospitality, hosting occasions like the 50th anniversary of their law school class.

Retired DeLand defense attorney James B. Clayton also has known Scarlett since law-school days.

"He had a good, deep voice. He was not timid," Clayton recalled. "He had a forceful personality, then and now. He was a good advocate for his clients. The criminal-defense clients loved him."

Scarlett, who is closing in on his 79th birthday, has worked longer than most attorneys, Clayton said, "because he enjoys it so much."

No politician

When Warren and Scarlett attended Stetson's law school, it was housed in old quarters left over from the Navy's tenure on the DeLand Municipal Airport during World War II.

Volusia County had calmed down quite a bit, by then, from the scandal-filled days of the 1920s and 1930s, when two political machines called The Ring and The Anti-Ring ran the county.

But young Joe Scarlett gave his professors some indication he would not shy away from controversy after he passed the bar.

"Scarlett, you will always dwell in the cesspools of law," he recalls one of his professors, Dean Howes, told him.

Scarlett graduated in June 1952, six weeks after his father's death.

Twelve years later, he tried a run for elected office, and lost to his friend.

"I was not too involved in politics," Scarlett said. "Dan Warren beat me out of it."

In addition to serving as State Attorney, Warren was a municipal-court judge and a justice of the peace.

Scarlett was appointed deputy commissioner of the State Industrial Commission, acting as a judge in disputed workers' compensation cases.

Scarlett also served as public defender, first appointed by the governor in 1965. In those days, it was an appointed, not elected office.

Scarlett had concluded he was too outspoken to get elected as State Attorney or judge. He couldn't just tell people what they wanted to hear.

"I was not electable," he said.

Also, people were judgmental about divorce in those days, he said, and he was divorced.

"Joseph was never hypocritical, because he had been divorced. He had the common touch juries related to," said his second and current wife, Sheila.

He won 86 percent of his cases, she noted.

Scarlett is proud he never lost a capital case.

He knew young John Tanner, now State Attorney for the 7th Judicial Circuit, when Tanner was a public defender and an assistant state attorney.

The two shared an office for a time, when Tanner was in private practice.

Though the names and some of the procedures have changed, the practice of law has remained much the same throughout his career, Scarlett said.

"People are still the same," he observed.

Civil rights, growth

DeLand has certainly changed, however, and Scarlett has watched it happen.

He lived in DeLand all his life, except for a time 1960-62, when he clerked for the Supreme Court and lived in Tallahassee. He was assistant to Justice Glenn Terrell.

He grew up when blacks were not allowed in DeLand's main movie house, the Athens Theater.

There was a "black" theater at the corner of Clara and Voorhis avenues, he said.

And the only place blacks could sit in the Volusia County Courthouse — now the Volusia County Historic Courthouse — was the balcony.

Scarlett recalled a trial in Lake County during which the sheriff demanded an African-American attorney be ordered to sit in the balcony, instead of at the defense table. The sheriff lost.

Scarlett remembers pulling down the "Whites Only" sign in the courthouse in the early 1960s. That was a sign the times were changing.

Some say Volusia County maintained a "Jim Crow" mentality and police brutality toward African-Americans into the 1970s, but Scarlett disputes it. By the 1960s, he said, racial hatred and segregation were fading.

DeLand was changing in other ways: It was growing.

During his youth, "There was never any traffic on Plymouth Avenue," Scarlett said. It was a safe place to ride a bicycle or play.

Today, "My father wouldn't believe what he would see," Scarlett said — the traffic, and especially all the growth on the north end of town.

Not quitting yet

With all its changes, DeLand is Scarlett's home. He is pleased his daughters live nearby. Alexandra worked in the Public Defender's Office for 30 years, and Shirley is a nurse.

Scarlett made it clear he plans to keep practicing law. He just won't be seen around the courthouse anymore.

Well probably not, anyway.

— pat@beacononlinenews.com

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