Footprints On My Soul: A Journal of a Circuit Court Judge

Through the lens of her private thoughts and feelings, the author, a retired Circuit Judge from Florida, describes her view from the Bench. Many of the cases she depicts involve children – children who were believed and then protected by the adults they trusted, and those who were not. Other court cases involve ordinary and extraordinary people who came seeking justice. Witnesses are often required to tell in public their darkest secrets, and this is particularly true of child victims. Laura’s stories include secrets – a few of her own as well as some she was privileged to hear from the Bench –to share the lessons of the immeasurable value of listening and believing. Laura candidly describes her professional struggles to do justice, including her decision to impose the death penalty twice. There are many interpretations of “justice,” and in the book she hopes to challenge the certainty of your own definition. To provide a framework for these stories, Laura tells her own story as a female in the Deep South, raised in a conservative culture with strict expectations. Laura describes the turmoil and uncertainty that led to her decision to leave the Bench after ten years, and she takes the reader on her extended solo RV trip around the country.