a day ago
F. Dennis Alvarez, former Hillsborough chief judge, dies at 79
TAMPA — Frank Dennis Alvarez, who as Hillsborough County's longtime chief judge championed reforms that became staples of the local criminal justice system and helped the careers of many prominent lawyers, died Thursday at home in Tampa.
His close friend, Simon Canasi, said Alvarez had been in hospice care. He'd received a heart transplant about 15 years ago and had experienced declining health in recent years. He was 79.
'He was an icon in the courthouse and a great friend,' Canasi said. 'There wasn't a place he could go that people didn't know who he was.'
He was a man once said to know politics like a jeweler knows stones, an always smiling, always-hand-shaking statesman who genuinely loved people and the city that made him.
Alvarez was born in 1945 in Ybor City. A son of cigar workers with Spanish and Italian roots, he grew up in West Tampa.
He dabbled in politics as a kid, putting bumper stickers on cars in support of Sam Gibbons, the late Tampa lawmaker. He mused that he one day wanted to be mayor of his hometown.
E.J. Salcines, a former Hillsborough state attorney and appellate judge, got to know Alvarez in childhood. They remained friends their entire lives.
'I'm sure that he looked up to me,' Salcines said. 'He always called me 'boss.''
Alvarez attended Jesuit High School and the University of South Florida.
He was in his senior year of college when Salcines campaigned to be elected Hillsborough County's top prosecutor. At a North Tampa campaign stop, Alvarez chatted with his old friend, who asked what he planned to do after graduation. Alvarez said he'd thought about law school.
Salcines encouraged him to take the admissions exam and apply. Alvarez became among the first in a long line of future Tampa lawyers to attend Salcines' alma mater, the South Texas College of Law.
He began his legal career in 1974 as an assistant state attorney in Salcines' office. He later worked in private practice before running unopposed in 1980 to become a county judge.
Four years later, he again ran unopposed for a seat on the circuit bench.
In 1988, his fellow jurists elected him chief judge.
'He was an exemplary judge and lawyer because he took his oaths very, very seriously,' Salcines said.
Alvarez led the judiciary as the county's population blossomed and its court system became more complex. Colleagues credited his ambition for the successes he had in the dozen years that followed.
He helped create the first adult and juvenile drug courts, which aim to address the roots of substance abuse and allow defendants to avoid criminal convictions for low-level drug crimes if they complete a treatment program. It was a novel concept at the time.
Drug court's success in Tampa drew national attention and set the mold for future problem-solving courts, like veterans treatment and mental health court.
Alvarez also established a special division to address domestic violence cases and a 'rocket docket' to clear a backlog of juvenile cases.
As a powerful judge, he occasionally turned up at the center of high-profile cases.
He had a minuscule role in the O.J. Simpson saga, when a man in Tampa was subpoenaed to testify in the former football star's murder trial. Alvarez presided over a hearing on the subpoena.
He also managed the hotly contested lawsuit over the estate of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Hugh Culverhouse.
As the face of the local judiciary, he administered oaths to countless lawyers and fellow judges. He swore into office local legal giants State Attorneys Harry Lee Coe III and Mark Ober.
As construction on a new court building began in 2000, Alvarez was among those who pushed to name the new facility for the late George Edgecomb, Hillsborough County's first African American judge. Four years later, the county dedicated the building at the corner of Twiggs and Jefferson streets the George Edgecomb Courthouse.
His widow, Doretha Edgecomb, said she knew Alvarez as someone who understood fairness but also stood for what he believed, even if it meant standing alone.
'He was approachable. He loved the law. And I considered him a friend,' she said.
Fellow public servants and politicians described Alvarez as man of steadfast loyalty, a confidant whose counsel was in high demand.
'If you are in a war, you want him in the foxhole with you,' former Hillsborough Tax Collector Doug Belden said of Alvarez in 2001.
Though he enjoyed a good reputation, Alvarez's last years running the local courthouse became sullied as some fellow judges were mired in scandal. Controversies included allegations of judges raising campaign money for politicians, having affairs with bailiffs and snooping around colleagues' offices after hours.
Amid the fallout, a state commission probed his handling of the misconduct, and a grand jury criticized his leadership.
He was 55 when he announced he would retire after 21 years on the bench. He emphatically denied that his departure had anything to do with the courthouse controversies, saying he'd long planned to return to private life.
A year later, he launched a brief campaign be Tampa's mayor, but the prospect that the court scandals would make for nasty attacks spurred advice to bow out.
But there were other factors, too. He'd dealt with heart problems most of his life, undergoing bypass surgery when he was just 34. As he became a senior citizen, he needed a new heart. From a hospital bed in 2010, he told the Tampa Bay Times his health troubles made politics seems less important.
'You get here and you think, man, that doesn't even come into play anymore,' he said.
A transplant that year gave him another decade and a half. He worked until the end.
Alvarez's robust legal background and influence made him in his later career a much-sought mediator for civil disputes.
He remained active in the community. He served as chairperson of the foundation for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay. He was an esteemed member of the Krewe of the Knights of Sant Yago, which seeks to preserve Tampa's Latin heritage.
'The city of Tampa has lost a wonderful person,' said Richard Gonzmart, the restaurateur whose family helped found the Krewe. 'There's so many young attorneys who will go on and practice because of his guidance and leadership.'
'He was one of my role models,' said Ronald Ficarrotta, who served as Hillsborough's chief judge from 2015 to 2023. 'He was definitely a mentor and someone I would call on from time to time for advice.'
Chief Judge Christopher Sabella became acquainted with Alvarez in meetings of local government entities in his early career as a lawyer for the Hillsborough sheriff's office. The collaboration between local offices and the courts was something that Sabella said Alvarez engineered.
'I just hope all the judges are able to keep the 13th Circuit where Dennis took it,' Sabella said.
Former Mayor Bob Buckhorn said Alvarez embodied, with his blue-collar roots, the values of the city's immigrant families and enduring loyalty to those who knew him.
'He rose to the highest ranks of the legal profession in Tampa, and his imprint on the many young lawyers that he mentored will ensure that his contributions will live on for decades,' Buckhorn said. 'He was my friend and I will miss him.'
