Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Lewis Dies at 78
Former Florida Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis has died at 78, with memorial services planned at the state Supreme Court next month.
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis died Tuesday at age 78, the court announced Thursday in a press release.
Lewis will lie in state in the court’s rotunda on June 11 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., where justices will receive the body and Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz will deliver remarks. A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. on June 12 in the courtroom.
Distinguished Judicial Career
Former Governor Lawton Chiles appointed Lewis to the Florida Supreme Court in 1998. Lewis served as chief justice from 2006 to 2008 before retiring in 2019 at the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Lewis was one of three veteran justices who reached the mandatory retirement age in 2019, creating vacancies that allowed then-Governor Ron DeSantis to reshape the court’s composition. DeSantis appointed Federalist Society-trained conservative justices who later reversed many precedents established by the previous court.
Court’s Shift Following Lewis’s Departure
The reconstituted court significantly altered Florida’s legal framework after Lewis and his colleagues left. In 2020, the new conservative majority reversed four of its own precedents to make it easier for the state to pursue death penalty cases.
The court also overturned a 2024 precedent that had established abortion access rights under the Florida Constitution’s Privacy Clause. This ruling enabled DeSantis and the Legislature to implement abortion bans after 15 weeks’ gestation and later after six weeks.
Personal Philosophy of Service
When Lewis joined the court in 1998, he described his approach to judicial service with personal reflection on his background.
“I offer eyes and ears that can not only see and listen, but also understand and hear human difficulties,” Lewis wrote. “My lessons of life came from being born into generations of coal miners in the mountains of West Virginia and the sense of community and human interaction necessary for survival at that time.”
Lewis’s death marks the passing of a jurist who served during a transformative period in Florida’s highest court, spanning from the late 1990s through the end of the 2010s before the court’s recent conservative shift.
