US district judge known for trying ‘Miami Vice’ case

U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul, who sent one of the country’s most flamboyant lawyers to jail and tried a case that was said to be the basis for the television show “Miami Vice,” died in Orlando Thursday at age 84.

Paul was known for his fairness and manners, and he loved trying criminal cases, said Michael Dupee, Paul’s longtime judicial clerk.

“The thing that most people say about him, on both sides of the aisle, is that he was remarkably fair and impartial. He was very respectful to people in his courtroom. Even the defendant who was about to be sent away, Judge Paul called him mister and wished him luck,” Dupee said. “He was also funny. He had a way of making the lawyers feel welcome in the courtroom. I’ve known him for 23 years and I’ve never heard him curse. He never said a mean thing about a person.”

One of Paul’s most notable cases was held in Gainesville and involved French-American drug smuggler Claude DuBoc, who pleaded guilty to drug and money-laundering charges. DuBoc was represented by F. Lee Bailey, a long-famous attorney who had been on the legal team that represented football star O.J. Simpson in his murder trial.

After the DuBoc case, Paul in 1996 ordered Bailey to jail when the attorney failed to turn over some of DuBoc’s assets, including interest earned on stocks that were seized as part of a plea deal, and that Bailey felt he was owed for representing DuBoc.

Paul also spent six years on a case involving massive drug smuggling by 25 defendants.

“There are a lot of people who say that drug raid was the basis of ‘Miami Vice’ — the inspiration for it,” Dupee said.

Paul was born in Jacksonville. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida in 1954 and then served several years in the Air Force as a pilot. He graduated from UF’s law school in 1960.

Paul practiced law in Orlando until 1973, when he became a circuit judge in the Ninth Circuit. In 1982 President Ronald Reagan appointed him a judge for the U.S. District Court for Florida’s northern district.

Paul and his late wife, Eleanor, had one son, James Paul.

He described his father as a brilliant man who lacked any pretension. “He was just a nice, modest man, but that didn’t prevent him from being a very forceful and very just person in his profession,” he said. “I would say he was a very quiet person. He was very selfcontained. There was always a certain reserve or sense about him that there was so much more he kept hidden.”