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Gerald Kogan, former Florida Supreme Court chief justice and ethics crusader, dies at 87

Back in the late 1990s, voter fraud in the city of Miami’s election capped a wave of corruption scandals that shattered the public’s trust in local government.

Civic-minded leaders turned to one person to head the crusade of restoring confidence: Gerald Kogan. At the time, he was a retired Florida Supreme Court chief justice with deep roots in the Miami-Dade community who had already reached the peak of his legal career.

Kogan, who died Thursday at the age of 87, saw public corruption as a threat to society itself. That will be his legacy.

“I’m a realist. I know I won’t be able to completely eliminate corruption,” Kogan, president of the Alliance for Ethical Government, said in October 1999. “You can’t reach into people’s hearts and change them, but you can cut down on unethical behavior by stopping people from doing things overtly which are wrong and letting them know they are being watched.”

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Kogan led a group of clergy, administrators, educators, business executives and other volunteers with the Alliance to clean up Miami-Dade, as they pushed for more watchdog policies in local government, including requiring officials and employees to take ethics courses. Among those who joined him in the campaign: County Inspector General Christopher Mazzella, a former FBI agent, along with officials from the Citizen’s Accountability Network, the state attorney’s office, the University of Miami’s Center for Ethics & Public Service, and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

UM law professor Anthony Alfieri, director of the school’s ethics center, said Kogan “exemplified the best of our community in terms of civic leadership and citizen governance. For the many UM law students who worked side-by-side with Justice Kogan ... his mentorship, collegiality, and sense of fairness and inclusion will not be forgotten.”

Born in New York City, Kogan moved with his parents and brother to Miami Beach in 1947. He graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School and attended the University of Miami, where he received a bachelor’s degree in business administration and his law degree. After law school, Kogan entered the U.S. Army and graduated from the Army Intelligence School. He served on active duty as a special agent in the Counterintelligence Corps. Then he launched his legal career in Miami, working as a state prosecutor and defense lawyer before becoming a circuit court judge and Florida Supreme Court justice.

Miami defense attorney Ben Kuehne, who has been involved in dozens of election and corruption cases, praised Kogan not only as a reformer during a scandalous era but also as a mentor who led by example throughout his storied life.

“Justice Kogan’s remarkable life played out across decades of Florida’s legal landscape,” Kuehne said. “As chief justice, he helped usher in the modern age for the judiciary, with the introduction of a public information spokesperson and the movement to technology-oriented courts,” he said.

Kogan was appointed as a Supreme Court justice on Jan. 30, 1987, and served until Dec. 31, 1998. In a statement, the court said Kogan was a “key figure in a series of reforms that made the Florida Supreme Court one of the most respected and accessible in the nation.” He served as its chief justice from 1996 to 1998.

In the 1990s, Kogan earned international praise for his “Access Initiative” — a program to use the emerging technology of the Internet to make Florida’s court more transparent to the public. He pushed for courts to provide their records freely to the public, and he also organized the first program to make all Florida Supreme Court arguments available gavel-to-gavel by Internet livestream.

Craig Waters, the director of public information for the Florida Supreme Court, served as Kogan’s senior lawyer for many years and as his executive assistant when he was chief justice.

“He is the one who created the Public Information Office I now head here at the court,” Waters said. “His impact on the administration of justice in Florida was enormous, long-lasting, and still studied today by courts around the world.”

“He firmly believed that sunshine is the best disinfectant,” Waters added. “He saw it as an antidote to the corruption that had festered in Florida’s courts in the 1970s. ... His impact on Florida cannot be underestimated. And it is an overwhelmingly positive impact.”

Kogan is survived by his wife, Irene, whom he met at UM, and his children, Robert Kogan and Karen Kogan Rosenzweig. Arrangements for services are pending.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to The Debbie Kogan Lyda Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1530 3rd Ave., South, Birmingham, AL 35294, or a charity of your choice.