Harold Sebring

Infobox Officeholder
name=Harold Sebring

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imagesize=200px
caption=
order=
office= Judge at the Nuremberg Trials
term_start= 1946
term_end= 1947
lieutenant=
predecessor=
successor=
office2= Chief Justice for the
Florida Supreme Court
order2=
term_start2 = 1951
term_end2 = 1953
predecessor2=
successor2=
birth_date= 1898
birth_place=
death_date= July 26, 1968
death_place=
religion=
profession= Lawyer
party=
footnotes=
website=

Harold L. "Tom" Sebring (1898-July 26, 1968PDFlink| [http://www.law.stetson.edu/lawrev/vause.pdf Stetson Law Review] |185 KiB Vol. XVI pp. 322-341 (PDF pp. 28-47).] ) was a Florida Supreme Court judge, a judge at the Nuremberg Trials and, while in law school, the head coach of the Florida Gators football team.

Born in Olathe, Kansas, Sebring spent 22 months overseas fighting in World War I. He was honorably discharged in 1919 with military decorations from both the U.S. and French governments. [http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/about/gallery/sebring.shtml Justice Harold Sebring] from the Florida Supreme Court web site.] Upon returning, Sebring studied architecture, engineering and business administration at Kansas State College. He also excelled in football, track and boxing and was named to the All Missouri Valley Conference in 1921 and 1922 and the Kansas State Aggies All-Time Football Team. [http://www.law.ufl.edu/leadership/sebring.shtml Harold "Tom" L. Sebring] from the Heritage of Leadership Recognition Society web site from the Levin College of Law.] Sebring received a Bachelor of Science degree from Kansas State University in 1923, where he studied architecture, engineering, and business administration.

Sebring was the University of Florida coach in football, track and boxing while attending the University of Florida College of Law. In 1925, his Gators football team finished with an 8-2 record, the best in school history at the time. Florida went 7-3 in 1927, Sebring's last season, and the team he recruited for 1928 finished 8-1 and led the nation in scoring. Sebring received a J.D. in 1928.

After receiving his law degree, Sebring practiced law in Miami and Jacksonville. He was appointed judge for the Eight Judicial Circuit from 1933 to 1943 and served on the Florida Supreme Court from 1943 to 1955. After World War II, President Harry S. Truman appointed Sebring to sit on the bench for the Nuremberg Trials. Sebring did not want to leave the Florida Supreme Court so he was granted a leave of absence; the other justices appointed a new lower-court judge each month to serve in Sebring's place each month. While in Nuremberg in 1946 and 1947, Sebring was a judge on the Doctors' Trial, one of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. Back in Florida, he was elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1951 to 1953.

On September 1, 1955, Sebring retired from the Florida Supreme Court and was named the dean of Stetson University College of Law, the first dean since the campus moved to Gulfport, Florida. Sebring's retirement from Stetson was planned for September 1, 1968 but he died five weeks earlier. On November 12, 1976, Stetson named a courtroom in his memory.

Sebring was an honorary Florida Blue Key member. He was married to Elise Bishop and had one child, son Harold Jr. Sebring's grandson, Harold III, leads a Tampa law firm, Sebring Law. [http://www.sebringlaw.net/ Sebring Law Firm] .]

References