8/8/2019 TIME Hugh D Hayes PUBLIC REPRIMAND Supreme Court Opinion 73502

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U.S.

Monday, Aug. 18, 1986

 All in the Family 

Even as she showered her sons with the proceeds from

her $10 million tobacco fortune, Margaret Hitchcock 

Benson lived in fear of them. There were constant fights

and drugs and a nightmarish unhappiness that led her

to believe that one or another of them was stealing her

funds and wanted her dead.

Her apprehension was well founded. A year ago, as she

sat in her station wag- on in the driveway of her home

in the wealthy South Florida city of Naples, a powerful pipe bomb

exploded between the front seats. Margaret Benson, 63, and her

adopted son Scott, 21, were killed immediately. Her daughter

Carol Lynn, now 42, was seriously injured but escaped from the

car moments before a second bomb blast.

Last week, after deliberating 11 1/2 hours on testimony heard

during a four- week trial, a jury in nearby Fort Myers found her

son Steven Benson, 35, guilty of two counts of first-degree

murder, two of felony murder and five relating to arson and

unlawful explosives. Judge Hugh D. Hayes Jr. said he intended to

heed the jury's recommendation for life in prison when formal

sentencing occurs next month.

Prosecutors presented 52 witnesses who painted Steven as an

improvident drifter whose business failures apparently led him to

misappropriate some of his mother's fortune. Only days before the

explosions, Margaret Benson asked a family lawyer to investigate.

Steven, the prosecutor argued, feared disinheritance. Experts

testified that his handprints were found on receipts for a length of 

4-in.-diameter pipe ($36.08, including tax) and two pipe

endpieces ($28.05 total) of the kind used in the fatal bombs.

Steven's sister, her face bearing ugly burn scars from the

 bombing, told the court tha t he left the car just before the blast,ostensibly to get something from the house, and kept his back to

her as she screamed for help.

Steven's lawyers contended that the killings could have been the

 work of young Scott's enemies, made during a fast-track life of 

girl chasing and drug buying. Scott, it was disclosed after the

murders, was the out-of-wedlock son of Carol Lynn; he had been

legally adopted by his grandmother.

Steven, considered mild-mannered around Naples, where the

freshly widowed Margaret Benson had moved from Lancaster,

Pa., in 1980, wept twice during the trial. When the verdict was

pronounced, he sat in choked silence. The defense planned to

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8/8/2019 TIME Hugh D Hayes PUBLIC REPRIMAND Supreme Court Opinion 73502

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No. 73,502

INQUIRY CONCERNING A JUDGE

RE: HUGH D. HAYES

[March 2 3 , 1 9 8 9 1

PER CURIAM.

We have for review the report of the Florida Judicial

Qualifications Commission recommending that Judge Hugh D. Hayes,

Circuit Judge of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit of Florida, be

given a public reprimand for the violation of Canons 1, 2 and

3A(6) of the Code of Judicial Conduct. We have jurisdiction.

Art. V, § 12, Fla. Const.

The Judicial Qualifications Commission instituted formal

proceedings against Judge Hugh D. Hayes alleging that

[dluring the murder trial of Steven Benson in1986, while serving as presiding judge in thattrial, [Judge Hayes] discussed with journalist

Michael Mewshaw on multiple occasions theprogress of the trial, [his] opinions andreactions to the conduct of participatingattorneys, witnesses and the jury, withknowledge that such discussions, comments andexpressions of opinion, though given "off therecord," would be used by journalist Mewshaw inmaterial that he was preparing for publication.Direct quotes in such publication entitled Monevto Rurn: The Storv of the Benson F&lv Murdersattribute to [Judge Hayes's] gross unjudicialstatements.

8/8/2019 TIME Hugh D Hayes PUBLIC REPRIMAND Supreme Court Opinion 73502

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* ' .Judge Hayes and the Commission stipulated that

(i) Judge Hayes does not contest the matters set

forth in the Notice of Formal Charges (the

"Notice") instituting this inquiry; (ii) Judge

Hayes has demonstrated that he has otherwiserendered commendable service to the public as a

conscientious judicial officer during his tenure

on the bench; (iii) Judge Hayes does not contestthe recommendation of the Commission as set

forth below . . . .

We hereby adopt the stipulation and recommendation of the

Judicial Qualifications Commission. The publication of this

order in the Southern ReDorter will constitute a public reprimand

of Judge Hugh D. Hayes for his conduct as a Circuit Judge of the

Twentieth Judicial Circuit of Florida.

It is so ordered.

EHRLICH, C.J., and OVERTON, McDONALD, SHAW, BARKETT, GRIMES and

KOGAN, JJ., Concur

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF

FILED, DETERMLNED.

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c

Original Proceedings - Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission

Roy T. Rhodes, General Counsel, Florida Judicial QualificationsCommission, Tallahassee, Florida,

for Petitioner

Hugh D. Hayes, in proper person, Naples, Florida,

for Respondent

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