SEVERAL SECOND CHANCES

The judge who will decide Darryl Strawberry's fate has a record that
suggests leniency.

TAMPA -- The defendant standing before Circuit Judge Florence Foster
had violated his probation five times, and prosecutors wanted to send
him to prison.

Judge Florence Foster moved to drug court in January 2000. "People are
very punitive until someone in their family has these problems," she
said.

Sitting on the bench, Foster looked through the defendant's file and
frowned. The defendant, one of hundreds who move through her court each
year, stood expressionless.

"I really think I will give you one more chance not to go to prison,"
Foster said. "Be sure to do what you are supposed to do."

Within moments, the defendant was walking out of the courtroom, on
probation. Another defendant, waiting her turn, watched
approvingly.

"She's so fair," said Danica Worley. "She really is."

Foster will be in the national spotlight today as she decides how to
punish former New York Yankee Darryl Strawberry for violating his
probation a fourth time when he binged on cocaine in February.

If she decides against sending him to prison, as prosecutors want, it
won't be anything unusual. She gives scores of defendants with drug
problems the same chance, time and again.

Another judge might use Strawberry's high-profile case to look tough
on crime. But Foster has used the attention to send a different
message, unpopular with some in law enforcement, that drug use should
be treated as a disease, as well as a crime.

"People are very punitive until someone in their family has these
problems," Foster said.

Foster's decisions have put her at odds with prosecutors. Privately,
judges dislike her demeanor as well. "Does she have that presence
about her? That intimidating presence? No," said Rick Terrana, a
criminal defense attorney in Tampa. "I think that may lend itself to a
false perception that she is weak."

For most of her 47 years, Foster has followed her own path. In
college, she explored philosophical Taoism as a religion. As a lawyer,
she ran for a judgeship even though she had been a lawyer barely five
years.

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Foster was raised by her mother and stepfather
and didn't meet her birth father until she was 18. She attended New
College in Sarasota, attracted by its non-traditional curriculum.

To make money for college, she worked as a bartender. She married and
divorced, then decided to attend law school, graduating from Stetson
in 1985 at age 31. She worked as a public defender in Pinellas County
for a year and clerked for U.S. District Judge Elizabeth
Kovachevich.

She met her current husband, Robert, then a lawyer, at a Bar luncheon.
They wed soon after their first date, and have two children, ages 13
and 11.

One day, 14 years ago, while attending Hyde Park United Methodist
Church, Foster said, she had a revelation and became a born-again
Christian. Religion has remained a strong influence on her life, she
said.

In 1990, she turned to God to decide whether to run for a Hillsborough
Circuit Court judgeship. She prayed about the campaign, and later
decided to follow God's calling. She won, beating two opponents.

She ran into controversy immediately. She was reassigned from the
juvenile division after articles in the Tampa Tribune questioned her
decisions. At her new assignment as a family law judge, a group called
Mothers Against Judicial Incompetence formed to oust her from the
bench, saying she was biased in favor of men in divorce and custody
cases.

She moved to drug court in January 2000, attending judicial seminars
that taught her how drugs alter a person's mind. She remembers a
conference when a number of people now working to help addicts
admitted to having been addicts.

"If a judge had not given them a break, they would not be able to do
their jobs," Foster said.

On the bench, Foster cuts a regal bearing with a prim posture. But
when she speaks, her imperial air goes away, and she sounds more like
a mother scolding a naughty child.

"You know that little voice in you that says, "I shouldn't, I
shouldn't,' listen to that voice," Foster told a defendant in April.
"I haven't given up on you."

In another case, prosecutors asked her to send a defendant, Isaak
Green, to prison for a year.

"Mr. Green, this is your lucky day," Foster said, before offering him
community control and drug probation. She warned him to stay off drugs.

"Cocaine has a loud voice, and it's been talking to you in your ear,"
she said.

Foster's bailiffs tell her defendants don't really listen. She keeps
up the practice anyway. People, she said, "want their judge to talk to
them."

In November, Foster told a defendant that she wouldn't send him to
prison because he was a "small, thin white man with curly hair" who
would likely become a sexual target behind bars.

The NAACP demanded an apology, and news organization across the nation
picked up the story. Foster later said she was sorry her remarks had
offended people, but stopped short of saying she was wrong.

She said the criticism won't stop her from giving a break to someone
deserving.

When judges talk about her, or when the press criticizes, she jogs and
prays.

"I'm there to do the right thing, and if I do the wrong thing, I will
find out real fast," she said.