If Circuit and County Judges in Florida are supposed to be elected, does anyone know why they are almost always appointed from a list created by the Judicial Nominating Commission?

Here is a copy of a memo from our 10th Judicial Circuit Judicial Circuit which illustrates my point.

TENTH CIRCUIT

JUDICIAL NOMINATING COMMISSION
Press Release

From: G. Gregory King, Chair
Tenth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission

Re: Applications sought for one County Judge Position

Date: February 6, 2006

The Tenth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission is now accepting
applications for a County Judge position. The Tenth Judicial Circuit
encompasses Polk, Hardee and Highlands Counties.

Applicants for this county judgeship must have been members of The
Florida Bar for the preceding five years, must be registered to vote in
the State of Florida, and must reside in Polk County at the time the
successful applicants are sworn into office.

Application forms for the judgeship may be obtained from Nominating
Commission Chair G. Gregory King, whose address and phone number appears
below. Application forms in various word processing formats are
available on The Florida Bar website at http://www.flabar.org.

The original and nine copies of the completed application must be
delivered to the Commission Chair at the address appearing below no
later than 5 p.m. on Friday, February 24, 2006. In the past,
applications that were not delivered by the specified deadline were no
considered by the Commission. The Commission’s interview of the
applicants is scheduled for March 10, 2006 at the Polk County
Courthouse.

The members of the Tenth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission are G.
Gregory King, Chair, Winter Haven; Billy R. Ready, Vice-Chair,
Auburndale; Sylvia Blackmon-Roberts, Lakeland; Judy Lee Brown, Sebring;
Mitchell D. Franks, Lakeland; Deborah Lee Oates, Bartow; John K.
Stargel, Lakeland Janet M. Stuart, Lakeland; and Donald H. Wilson,
Bartow.

G. Gregory King
State Farm Insurance Companies
7401 Cypress Gardens Blvd.
Winter Haven, FL 33888

Phone – 863-318-4507
Fax – 863-318-3317

Home

02/07/2006

Here is an article for anyone who wants to know what others around the country think about the Judicial System in the State of Florida. I admit, it is very long but a scan will be sufficient to see that others perceive there are serious problems down here.

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/122606WebEntangles.html

There is much more information to come both from my personal observations and from other documented and undocumented sources.

Here we go again

What exactly are you trying to accomplish with these annoying threads of yours Starkey?  It is obvious that you have a personal “beef” with the Highlands county court system.  Isn’t this the same document that you copied and pasted in your obscure and verbose family court thread?  Why would you create another thread with the same information?

Please don’t take offense to this, but your calls for court reform are unsubstantiated and useless.  The least you could do is keep your cries for revolution in one thread (your long winded rambling family court thread).  I fail to see the need for many different threads that all kick the same dead horse.

I challenge you to respond to this post with clear and concise answers minus the Thomas Jefferson quotes.

Here Todd, read this.

JUDICIAL NOMINATING COMMISSIONS
There are twenty-six judicial nominating commissions that screen applicants for vacancies on Florida courts and recommend qualified candidates to the governor: the statewide nominating commission for the supreme court, a commission for each of the five district courts of appeal, and a commission for each of the twenty judicial circuits. For all vacancies on the supreme court and district courts of appeal and for mid-term vacancies on the circuit and county courts, the appropriate nominating commission submits a list of three to six nominees. The governor must appoint one of the commission’s nominees.

Each nominating commission consists of nine members appointed by the governor. Four members are lawyers appointed from lists of nominees submitted by the Florida Bar. Of the remaining five members, at least two must be lawyers. Members must be residents of the jurisdiction the commission serves. In making the appointments, the governor is to ensure that, to the extent possible, the membership of each commission reflects the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity and geographic distribution of the relevant jurisdiction. Members serve four-year terms.

SELECTION OF JUDGES
*If two or more candidates qualify for the ballot, they compete in the first primary election. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top two candidates run in the general election. The voters in each circuit may exercise a local option for merit selection and retention of circuit court judges. A circuit may initiate the local option by filing with the secretary of state a petition signed by a number of voters equal to at least 10% of the votes cast in the circuit in the most recent presidential election. The measure must then be approved by a majority of circuit voters.

*The voters in each county may exercise a local option for merit selection and retention of county court judges. A county may initiate the local option by filing with the secretary of state a petition signed by a number of voters equal to at least 10% of the votes cast in the county in the most recent presidential election. The measure must then be approved by a majority of county voters.

**In counties with populations of 40,000 or less, the five-year requirement is waived.

The original question posed on this topic was as follows:

“If Circuit and County Judges in Florida are supposed to be elected, does anyone know why they are almost always appointed from a list created by the Judicial Nominating Commission?

And, the answer is that the powerful Good Ole Boys network which includes certain powerful State legislators, the Florida Bar, and other wealthy and influential individuals, are circumventing the Judicial election process which gives the people a say in who their Judges are, by utilizing the Judicial Nominating Commission process at every opportunity to appoint their people into these powerful Judicial positions.
There is an interesting but unsavory history to the Judicial selection process in Florida. Selection methods and term lengths for Florida judges are prescribed in the state’s constitution. Thus, any changes must occur through constitutional amendment.
In 1998, voters approved a Constitutional Amendment that allowed the citizens of each county to vote to provide that their trial judges would be appointed and retained in their positions based on “merit,” with one of the measures of merit being the disciplinary history of the Judges. If approved in each county in Florida, this method of selection and retention would have been an alternative to elections which in theory gives the residents greater control over their Judiciary. This measure was rejected by the voters in each and every county when it reached the ballot in 2000.
This proposed “merit” selection process was supported by the wealthy and otherwise powerful individuals who presently have political control in Florida. It was opposed by several women’s and minority groups and the vast majority of residents because of the “closed door, elite” nature of the “merit” selection process. In other words, merit selection allows the rich and powerful to maintain their power by taking the selection of State Judges out of the hands of the people who are subject to their rulings.
Despite the wishes of the majority of residents in Florida, what has come to pass is that these rich powerful individuals who failed in their “merit selection” efforts are now circumventing and otherwise abusing the Judicial Nominating Commission process as a “means to an end,” to maintain their virtual absolute power over this branch of State Government. Meanwhile, the vast majority of residents are left with very little influence over who the Judges are either at the county, circuit, appellate, or Supreme Court levels. I will discuss this issue in greater detail soon.

Sporty Lady,
Thank you for the post.

tstarkey,
Nobody really cares about you’re rants!  Please stop and get a life.

Gator1,
There is much more to discuss. REQUEST DENIED.
tstarkey

My interest has primarily been on protecting the welfare of the children as I have seen how their interests have been all to often neglected by the State Courts here in Florida. Therefore, as a side note I’m submitting the following information which probably has not received much notice in the State of Florida:

The peer-reviewed study, “A Child’s Right to Counsel: First Star’s National Report Card on Legal Representation for Children”, has been released by First Star, a leading national child advocacy organization.
The first-of-its-kind study, released at a Congressional briefing on Capitol Hill, found “glaring anomalies” in how states protect the legal rights of children in abuse, neglect, and dependency cases, leading to substandard levels of service and unacceptable outcomes in most states. Fifteen states received failing grades and six more received D’s in the “National Report Card on Legal Representation of Children.”
The 15 states receiving an F were Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington. Only five states received A’s: Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York and West Virginia.

As for me personally, I cannot return to the State of Florida without being arrested due to my failure to comply with what amounts to an evil order of the Highlands County Court. The damage to my children’s lives and futures has taken place and there is nothing that I can or ever could do to prevent that. If given the opportunity, I will attempt to facilitate their rehabilitation when they are adults.
As for the rest of the residents of the State, it is your Court system and it is you that has paid and will continue to pay the price for your failure to properly regulate your legal profession. This price will include increasing incarceration costs including the financial support for an ever increasing and aging prison population, increasing incarceration costs for youthful offenders and children, increasing violent and nonviolent crime, increasing victimization and child abuse and neglect, increasing hard drug use, increasing mental illness, and overall, an increasingly sociopathic population.

Interesting.  This kind of reminds me of something I read on Dan Burke PI

Its worth taking a look at.

-Top Gun

Here is an excerpt from the Florida Code of Judicial Conduct that is worthy of comment:
Canon 3D(2) A judge who receives information or has actual knowledge that “substantial” likelihood exists that a lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar shall take “appropriate action.”

I wonder what this really requires a Judge to do. This Code is written very, very carefully. So it just does not happen that the words “substantial” and “appropriate” are used here. Regarding the word “substantial”, I have a feeling that this word gives a Judge a plausible excuse for failing to take “appropriate action” when he witnesses what may be violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct by attorneys.

Or, maybe the word “substantial” has been inserted because there is a concern that without it there would be too many frivolous investigations into lawyer misconduct initiated by well meaning Judges.

Thankfully, police officers have written procedures that are much more detailed than this. I can only imagine what kind of society we would live in if police officers only responded when they “received information or had actual knowledge that “substantial” likelihood existed that an individual had committed a violation.”

What is “appropriate action”?

I think that the governed would be better served if those who have the privilege of ruling had many more written rules and procedures to follow. I believe that the Canons of Judicial Conduct should be greatly expanded to ensure among other things that when Judges have knowledge or an impression that a violation has taken place that they are required to refer the issue to The Florida Bar for investigation. If the Judicial Branch of State Government is going to be allowed to regulate itself, then I think it should be required to regulate itself.

tstarkey - 19 November 2007 03:59 PM

My interest has primarily been on protecting the welfare of the children

hmmm

Maybe paying your court ordered child support would be a good start.

gritshifter - 20 November 2007 09:50 AM

tstarkey - 19 November 2007 03:59 PM

My interest has primarily been on protecting the welfare of the children

hmmm

Maybe paying your court ordered child support would be a good start.

gritshifter,
The indirect civil contempt is for failing to pay my former wife’s politically well contected but sociopathic attorney, not child support. I pay that monthly. I have to wonder if your comment truly represents a lack of reading comprehension skills or an intentional intent to mislead anyone who may be reading this topic. Perhaps, you are having some moral character issues, gritshifter.
tstarkey

tstarkey-

I appologize for assuming that you do not pay your child support.  If you had clearly answered questions in your family court thread there would have been less confusion.  According to the post above you declare that I have moral character issues.  How dare you question my moral character while you have a warrant issued for your arrest for arrogantly refusing to pay court costs in a case that you lost.  Do you think that your pride is worth your children not seeing their father?  Instead of trying to overthrow our local judicial system by wasting your time ranting on and on here in this forum, why don’t you get a second job and pay the court ordered payments so that you can see your children.  You claim to worry oh so much about the welfare of children.  Maybe you should worry about your own before you take on the rest of societies.