Tampa’s chief judge ran new courts dealing with guns, mental health

The Marine veteran came to court because police had taken away his guns.

They did it under a red flag law that lets authorities confiscate weapons from people deemed dangerous. Since then, the man had called 911 to demand that police helicopters stop following him, and now law enforcement wanted a judge to let them keep the guns awhile longer.

In court, Hillsborough Chief Judge Ron Ficarrotta stepped down from the bench, shook the man’s hand and asked about the help he was getting. Then he granted the order allowing authorities to hold onto those guns.

Risk Protection Court — one of the newer courts created to deal with specific issues, including two mental health courts also started on Ficarrotta’s watch — “was an eye-opener,” the judge said recently.

This cache of weapons was seized from one Hillsborough County man who later appeared in Risk Protection Court.
Times (2019)

Ficarrotta, 64, known for advocating for court improvements, protecting judges and coming down off the bench to talk to people directly in his courtroom, retires at the end of August.

Judge Fig, as he’s called at the courthouse, once sat down in the jury box next to an angry, combative juvenile in mental health court. This alarmed his bailiffs, but the judge learned the teenager was worried about his sisters in foster care.

“In these types of courts, I think it’s important for people to be eye-level with you,” said Ficarrotta, “that you’re just not sitting up there in the big chair.”

A Tampa native, he arrived at the courthouse 40 years ago in a new navy blue Johnny Carson suit from Belk Lindsey to work as a prosecutor for then-State Attorney E.J. Salcines. Like other lawyers in town — including judges, a prior state attorney and the current public defender — Ficarrotta attended South Texas College of Law, nicknamed E.J.U. because of the local pipeline via alumni Salcines.

A Democrat, Ficarrotta was appointed to the county bench in 1994 by Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles and to the circuit bench in 1999 by Republican Jeb Bush. In 2014, his peers elected him the chief judge, a job he left this summer due to term limits.

Hillsborough Chief Judge Ron Ficarrotta on the bench.
Times (2019)

Back when Hillsborough courts were awash in controversies — among them, a judge alleged to have harassed women, including fellow judges, and another accused of snooping in an enemy judge’s office — Ficarrotta was among the local judiciary who stayed above the fray. The Judge Ficarrotta who resigned following an affair with a bailiff was his cousin, Gasper.

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Former Chief Judge F. Dennis Alvarez said Ficarrotta didn’t ruffle political feathers and took care of any issues privately. “One of the few judges that sat back and did their jobs and did a damn good job,” Alvarez said.

Andrew Warren, the former Hillsborough state attorney removed last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis, said even though the incumbent state attorney he defeated in 2016 was Ficarrotta’s friend, the judge became “a tremendous partner” in working on innovations in the justice system.

Chief Judge Ron Ficarrotta speaks at a Veteran Treatment Court Regional Training Workshop in Tampa. Times (2019)

After he became chief judge, his phone rang nights about a burst pipe flooding a courtroom or a sick judge with a huge docket in the morning. Sometimes, the job was keeping judges out of trouble.

In 2017, Judge Margaret Taylor made national news at a bail hearing when she lambasted a University of South Florida football player charged with sexual battery and also his coach, Charlie Strong. In the dust-up that followed, Ficarrotta arranged a meeting between coach and judge. “A very, very positive conversation,” he reported afterward. He preferred a talk over cafe con leche to a strongly-worded email.

Ficarrotta started Mental Health Court in 2016, and later a similar one for juveniles, aimed at steering certain defendants with mental health issues away from the criminal court system and into treatment. “That was the most rewarding thing I’ve done in 29 years as a judge,” he said. “You see the result … ‘Judge, I got a job!’”

DeSantis appointed him to the Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse to study services available and ways to improve them.

Ficarrotta was a familiar face in Tallahassee, and in 2021, six new judges were in the state budget for Hillsborough County. At home, fellow Judge Nick Nazaretian said Ficarrotta was out four or five nights a week at legal events and community meetings.

Recently, the judges got an email from the chief on a court-related matter when Ficarrotta was supposed to be in Italy for a wedding. “You know what?” Nazaretian said. “He was in Italy.”

Hillsborough Judge Ron Ficarrotta retires at the end of August. [ SUE CARLTON I Times ]

When Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos G. Muniz gave Ficarrotta the 2023 Distinguished Judicial Service Pro Bono Award for his support of programs for free legal services, Muniz called Ficarrotta “a model of the service-minded judge.”

In the past, Ficarrotta indicated interest in the state attorney job. Asked if he is considering running against current state attorney Suzy Lopez, and possibly Warren, Ficarrotta did not give a definitive no.

But he said recent deaths of friends, including former fellow judge Dan Perry at 67, have made him think about how to spend his later years. He’s looking forward to traveling with his wife, Monica, and plans to take a course on being a court mediator.

He was recently surprised with a ceremony naming a courtroom for him.

“I’m very, very fortunate — I don’t think I have any enemies in the courthouse,” he said. “There’s probably people who don’t like me, but I hope everybody in this courthouse has respected me.”

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