Justice Ben F. Overton was the first Florida Supreme Court Justice to be selected under the merit selection process (effective January 1, 1973), which was designed to remove politics from Florida's judicial system and improve the quality of the state's courts. He was appointed by Governor Reubin Askew in 1974 and was the senior member of the Supreme Court, prior to his retirement in 1999. He has been a judicial officer of this state for more than thirty-four years and a Justice of the Supreme Court for more than twenty-four years. He served as Chief Justice from 1976 to 1978 and, while Chief Justice, was a member of the Executive Committee of the Conference of Chief Justices and was chair of the conference's Special Committee on Cameras in the Courtroom and Judicial Education. The standards adopted by those committees have now been implemented in most states. Before his selection as a Justice, he served for nearly ten years as a circuit judge, both in the civil and criminal divisions of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida, and was the chief judge of that circuit for three and one-half years. In 1973, he was chair of the Florida Conference of Circuit Judges. Justice Overton has been involved in a number of governmental, legal, educational, bar, historical, and professional activities.