Where are they now?

'Constitutional senility' hasn't dulled these justices' zest for life

Those fortunate federal judges get to hang onto their jobs for life. But Florida's judges joke that they're victims of "constitutional senility" because of the 1972 provision that says once you blow out 70 candles on your birthday cake, it's time to wind down your judicial career, finish your last term, clean out your chambers and turn in the black robe.

So where are they now, we wondered, those forced retirees from the state's highest court?

As it turns out, they're not bothered one bit about their mandatory retirement. They're enjoying life. And truth be known, most are still working in the area they love best -- the law.

JOE BOYD, JR., age 82:

Justice Boyd remembers being at Gov. Bob Martinez' inaugural ball in January 1987 "watching the rich folks dance," while the clock was ticking down on his own 18-year stint in public service.

Ann, his wife and college sweetheart, tapped him on the arm and said, "It's midnight. You're like Cinderella. You're not a Supreme Court justice anymore. Better get some sleep so you can get up and go to the law office and do your thing."

The next morning, the alarm rang at 6:30, and Justice Boyd got dressed and reported dutifully to his son's Tallahassee law office. Joe Boyd III was in the midst of a big deal and asked his dad to participate.

"I had something to do the minute I got there," Justice Boyd recalls with a smile adding, "And I had tried to keep up with the changes in the law."

Though he's still associated with his son's office, he doesn't practice much law these days. Boyd's passion is his family, as reflected in his official portrait at the Supreme Court (as the only chief justice with a picture of himself with his wife and five children hanging in the background), as well as studying and writing history.

"I do history like others do the funny papers," Boyd says.

Just as he did when he was a Supreme Court justice, he begins each day reading a chapter of the Bible. Currently, he's taking the New Testament, reading a chapter, then writing the historical context of the times.

And he's spent time writing his own history, as well. In Haunted Hills, published in 1995 and available at Barnes & Noble, Justice Boyd tells "60 true stories" including his adventures selling Bibles to raise money to go to Piedmont College in North Georgia during the Depression.

Just as colorful as listening to him talk, Justice Boyd describes himself in the book as a "penniless hillbilly student who slept in haunted houses, fought bulldogs and avoided escaped convicts and jealous husbands in selling a few Bibles."

When he was just 13, he knew he wanted to be a lawyer.

"The reason was, I knew a man who was sentenced to a chain gang, because he picked a bit of worthless cotton and put it in his wagon. My dad and a distant cousin who was a judge...