Pioneer jurist Heffernan dies.
Judge David J Heffernan, one of Miami's earliest and most honored jurists, died last night at Doctors Hospital.
The judge had suffered a heart attack Tuesday at his home at 338 Majorca Avenue, Coral Gables. He was 88.
In the Miami boon days of 1925, the idea of a "juvenile court" was new; Judge Heffernan, as the city's first night police court judge, helped make it work.
"It became my duty as night judge to try to keep some of those youngsters on the straight and narrow way," he recalled in an interview years later.
Judge Heffernan also cracked down hard on drunk drivers, who appeared frequently in those wild boom days of "tin Lizzies" and dirt roads. He usually stripped them of driving privileges.
After two years on the municipal bench, he was appointed to the Dade County Civil Court of Record, where he served until his official "retirement" in 1959, and for several years thereafter in a part-time capacity because, he said, he didn't want to just sit around and harden his arteries.
He refused chances to sit on the Circuit Court bench because he disliked divorces, he said.
Judge Heffernan began studying law at the local YMCA in his native town of East Weymouth, Mass. The classes formed the nucleus of Northeastern University.
He hadn't completed his law studies, however, before coming to Miami in 1911. He got a job in the office of attorney James T Sanders, resumed his study, and passed his bar exam.
The young lawyer hung out his shingle on Flagler Street and quickly became active in the young city's growth. He served as an assistant county solicitor before being named a municipal judge. During his term on the city bench, he said, traffic deaths in Miami were reduced from seven a month to one a month.
After full retirement from the bench, Judge Heffernan became an assistant to Sidney Ansin, the late president of WCKT-TV in Miami. He was a member of the station's board of directors.
Judge Heffernan's community interests were widespread. He organized the Miami Chapter of the Knights of Columbus and served as a Grand Knight of the K of C and as its state district deputy.
He was a director of the Dade County Red Cross for more than five years and a lifetime honorary member of its board of directors. He was a former exalted grand ruler of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, president of the Little Flower Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society, and a member of the Diocesan Council, National Council of Catholic Me.
Judge Hefferenan was an honorary member of the Miami Police Benevolent Association since its inception in 1923; a co-chairman of a Mercy Hospital fund-raising drive and later a hospital trustee; a former president of the Baby Milk Fund; for president of the Lighthouse for the Bland; and served with the YMCA, the Chamber of Commerce, Big Brothers of Miami, Community Chest (forerunner of the United Fund) and the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. He was a member of the Dade County Bar Association, the Florida Bar and the American Judicature Society.
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