Warned that a nominating panel tried to stack the deck for another candidate, Chiles appointed Labarga to a Palm Beach County judgeship despite his having contributed to Jeb Bush’s campaign against Chiles in 1994. Lawton Chiles’ respect for judicial independence. Labarga, 70, a native of Cuba, owed the start of his judicial career to Gov. Grosshans, 43, an Ole Miss law graduate, was a former Orange County judge and a judge of the Fifth District Court of Appeal when she became DeSantis’s second choice for an open Supreme Court seat two years ago. attorney in Miami before joining a law firm with an international practice. A 43-year-old Harvard law graduate, he was an experienced assistant U.S. Labarga leads the 2022 list with 85% approval, compared to 91% six years ago.Ĭouriel’s rating is at odds with an impressive resumé. Only 73% favored Canady’s retention and only 74% approved of Polston - a significant drop from their 84% approval ratings when they were last on the ballot in 2016. The legal community has taken notice, as reflected in a recently released poll of Florida Bar members based on responses only from lawyers familiar with the court’s work. Voters should weigh that in Polston’s favor. We oppose Justice Ricky Polston with mixed feelings because he was the only justice to buck Canady, the chief justice at the time, over creating a wholly unnecessary sixth district court of appeal for which no explanation exists but parochial politics. Without any pending case, it forbade the Florida Bar from requiring diversity among panelists who teach continuing education courses that lawyers are required to take.Ī court so dismissive of tradition and judicial restraint is unlikely to enforce Florida’s anti-gerrymandering amendments or abide by its own 1989 decision establishing abortion as a protected right of privacy, even though both rights have been emphatically endorsed by voters in recent elections.

It blocked a proposed assault weapons ban from reaching voters. It allowed an unconstitutional legislative gerrymander to go into effect. Whoever they are, his refusal to identify them is reason enough for voters to register their disapproval by rejecting his justices.ĭeSantis told Hewitt he approves of “judicial activism” - something virtually all Republicans claim to deplore, “if that’s the proper interpretation of the Constitution.” In other words, if he agrees.įlorida’s highest court has become breathtakingly activist, repealing precedents wholesale to make criminal laws harsher, the death penalty more likely and civil courts more hostile to people with damage claims against Big Tobacco and other corporate defendants. His clandestine consultants are likely members of the arch-conservative Federalist Society, like the governor himself and his Supreme Court appointees. By law, all nine nominating commissioners must be Florida residents. It’s obvious who DeSantis’ secret influencers are not. The four sitting justices he appointed won’t say if they were vetted by an entity other than the official Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, which recommended them to DeSantis. His press office ignored our four requests to identify them.

Who are these people? DeSantis won’t say. He said his prospective Supreme Court appointees are questioned by “a group of people that I trust,” including “six or seven pretty big legal conservative heavyweights,” some outside Florida. 25 interview with conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt. DeSantis may have revealed more than he intended in an Aug.

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