Miami attorney Cantero is choice

  BY JONI JAMES

  TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush this morning will name Miami attorney Raoul Cantero III as the first Hispanic justice on the Florida Supreme Court,
  sources close to the governor said late Tuesday.

  In making the 41-year-old Cuban-American his first high court appointee, the Republican governor has chosen a respected corporate lawyer and
  registered Independent. Cantero is expected to have conservative leanings, especially compared to the court's six other jurists, all Democratic
  appointees.

  Andrew Grigsby, the Miami attorney who chaired a nine-member panel that forwarded Cantero's name and four others to the governor for consideration,
  said choosing Cantero was consistent with Bush's message to the state's Judicial Nominating Commissions -- that he wants to diversify the state's
  judiciary, which has lagged in representing minorities.

  Cantero, who replaces retiring Justice Major Harding, will join a bench now composed of four white justices, including one woman, and two black justices,
  including one woman.

  ''Gov. Jeb Bush is making the bench look more like the state of Florida,'' Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said
  Tuesday after being told of the appointment. ``It's fantastic.''

  Bush said last month that a candidate's ethnicity ``is just one of the collection of things you consider.''

  Cantero, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday night, brings to the job a reputation as a smart, hard-working lawyer, one known to lunch at
  his desk.

  Nearly every judge on the Third District Court of Appeal in West Miami-Dade, where Cantero practices the bulk of his work as the head of the appellate
  division of Adorno & Yoss, recommended him to the nominating committee.

  Born in Spain to the daughter of ousted Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, Cantero was 9 months old when his parents, living in exile, brought him to
  America.

  A product of Miami's Catholic schools, Cantero followed his father into the legal profession. He graduated from Harvard law school after earning his
  undergraduate degree at Florida State University, with majors in English and business and minors in philosophy and mathematics.

  Cantero was the only nominee among the five finalists who drew considerable controversy. Critics ranging from Miami radio commentator Francisco Aruca
  to The St. Petersburg Times editorial board urged Bush to bypass Cantero, saying his ties to a militant Cuban exile extremist should disqualify him --
  especially at a time when the nation is battling terrorism.

  Cantero was a junior associate in 1989 when the firm, then Adorno & Zeder, helped Orlando Bosch stay in the U.S. and out of prison after he was
  released from jail in Venezuela for his alleged role in blowing up a Cuban airliner with 73 passengers aboard.

  Bush has his own ties to Bosch, having worked as the campaign manager for Bosch's leading champion, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, when she was a
  state legislator. He also visited pro-Bosch hunger strikers in Miami. And it was Bush's father, former President George Bush, who agreed to release
  Bosch.

  ''Cantero did more than plead and argue the law,'' The St. Petersburg Times said in an editorial last week. 'He took to talk radio in Miami 13 years ago,
  when Bosch was facing deportation, to describe him as a `Cuban patriot.' ''

  Cantero and Bush have each declined to talk about the controversy.

  Cantero told The Herald last month: ``As an attorney, you're advocating for one side.''

  Bush has declined to make specific statements on what he was looking for in a jurist other than to say he would consider each candidate on the full
  complement of qualifications.

  Former state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan, who was appointed by the state's last Republican governor, Bob Martinez, said he doubts the Bosch
  connection had any effect on Bush's decision.