Noriega Judge Looks--and Acts--as if He Came From Central Casting : Trial: Judge Hoeveler vows to give ‘notable’ defendant a fair trial. Attorneys say the jurist personifies judicial temperament.

MIAMI —  He stands 6-feet-3, his hair is silver-gray, he speaks in a rich baritone, and his bearing is nothing less than magisterial.

“If you went to Central Casting and said, ‘Give me a judge,’ ” says top Miami defense attorney Roy Black, “you couldn’t get someone better than William Hoeveler.

“But he not only looks like a perfect judge,” adds Black. “He is.”

By random assignment, U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler has been called on to preside over the trial of Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, the deposed Panamanian dictator who was flown to South Florida and arraigned Thursday on charges of racketeering, drug trafficking and money laundering.

“This one is a horse of a different color; this is a rare bird,” Hoeveler said Friday when asked about the case. “But only because it involves a rather notable figure. It shouldn’t be handled different from any other. He’s entitled to the same rights and constitutional protection as any other defendant.”

Once the trial of Noriega begins--and it is not expected to begin for months--Hoeveler said his courtroom manner will be the same as always. “I just try to be myself, I suppose, and do what is proper,” he said. “I think the important thing for any judge to do is recognize that each case is the most important in the world for the particular litigants.”

While Hoeveler said he does not expect the case to pose “a novel area of law,” the trial of Noriega would be the first ever of a foreign leader seized in his own country and brought to the United States to face criminal charges.

Frank Rubino, one of Noriega’s attorney’s, has already raised the issue of immunity from criminal prosecution that historically has cloaked the heads of sovereign governments. Loaded with issues involving classified documents, national security and perhaps unprecedented questions about search and seizure laws and jurisdiction, experts say the case is sure to generate a legal Gordian knot that few judges this side of the Supreme Court have ever faced.

But, according to interviews with several Miami lawyers who know him well, there is no judge quite like Hoeveler, either.

“If I were Noriega’s lawyer, and I could choose my judge, I would have chosen William Hoeveler,” said Miami attorney Bradley R. Stark. “He really stands alone.”

Added attorney Black: “I’ve tried many hard, difficult and complex cases before him. He is highly intelligent, reasonable, and he hardly ever gets mad. He lets everyone argue their case, and then rules on what the law is.

“He is probably the perfect judge for a high-profile case like that of Noriega. He will not allow himself to be pressured by lawyers or the media. He personifies judicial temperament.”

In response to questions about Hoeveler’s temperament, the same adjectives come up repeatedly: fair, reasonable, meticulous, unbiased, patient. Indeed, it is nearly impossible to find anyone with an opinion of the judge that is less than adulatory. Ever since President Jimmy Carter named him to the Federal Court in 1977, Hoeveler’s annual ratings from lawyer opinion polls bear witness to the respect he has earned.

In 1989, more than 98% of about 1,500 Dade County lawyers who responded to the poll rated Hoeveler as exceptionally qualified or qualified. No other South Florida judge--federal, state or county--comes close.

“He’s one of the finest gentlemen you’d ever want to meet,” said Richard D. Gregorie, the former assistant U.S. attorney who brought the case against Noriega in 1988. “He is exceptionally fair. Even when lawyers are on the wrong side of his decisions, you never hear them say they were treated unfairly. He is thorough and he reviews the records to see what (attorneys) are entitled to. Noriega is lucky to get him.”

In an interview Friday morning, Steven Kollin, another of Noriega’s attorneys, agreed with that. “Fair” was the word he used, too.

Hoeveler, 67, was born in Paris of a French mother and an American father, and was raised in the Philadelphia area. He attended Temple University and after a four-year tour of duty in the Marines returned to graduate from Bucknell University in 1947. He earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1950, and in more than 25 years of private practice in Miami, he concentrated on civil cases.

Since being appointed to the bench, however, the most sensational cases to come before him have been criminal. In the 1970s, he presided over the long-running trial involving corruption in South Florida’s longshoremen’s union. He heard the case of a group of Miami Coptics, who contended without success that marijuana smoking was part of their religion, and the controversial case in which a teen-age killer unsuccessfully invoked a television intoxication defense.

He has presided over two major cases involving Cuban terrorist groups and lately has heard several cases involving jail overcrowding.

A teetotaler and an active Episcopalian, Hoeveler’s community works include a program aimed at job training for school dropouts in Miami’s predominantly black Liberty City section; an organization that helps former prisoners adjust to life on the outside, and a group that makes recordings for the blind.

As a federal judge, Hoeveler receives an annual salary of $96,500, and he is apparently careful to live within his means.