THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:
GOVERNOR DESANTIS & HIS RECORD ON JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS .... AND NEW LAWYERS JOIN THE RANKS OF THE FLORIDA BAR .......
Last week I reported to my loyal readers that three new judges* were appointed in Miami-Dade County among a grand total of 20 new judges appointed throughout the State by Gov. DeSantis on September 16th. Following my post, there was a decent amount of chitter chatter on the local list serv which we will not quote from directly. But the gist of the chatter was that, in the patch of 20 new judges, Gov DeSantis included two, yes two criminal defense practitioners, and that we should somehow be excited because our fine Governor has finally seen the light after being in office for 32 months and finally recognized the fact that a criminal defense lawyer can actually make for a fine trial court judge.
Let’s be clear and set the record straight. DeSantis’ record of judicial appointments has been abysmal. There is a reason why DeSantis does not fear losing at the appellate court level when a trial court judge in Tallahassee rules the Governor’s mask Order to be unconstitutional. He knows that every single judge sitting on the 1st DCA is a Republican appointee and, as DeSantis predicted, they reversed the trial court judge’s ruling faster than you can say the word “ivermectin”. The trial court appointments made by DeSantis also reflect only one kind of judge - one that has somewhere on their resume the initials “ASA”, “AUSA”, or “AAG”.
The current numbers are staggering when you consider them from the lens of a criminal defense practitioner, or, better yet, from the eyes of the citizens of our great state - many of whom may someday appear before one of those trial court judges.
Governor DeSantis loves to cite his record of diversity in his judicial appointments. His appointments to the bench have been anything but diverse. (Contrast that with President Biden's first eight months in office. On Monday, the Senate confirmed another Biden appointee as an U.S. appeals court judge - Veronica Rossman; Judge Rossman becomes one of only eight appeals court judges in the country who have experience as a public defender. Biden is responsible for naming four of those appointees. Read the full story here.).
Between January of 2019 and September of 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis has appointed at least 148 judges to the Florida Supreme Court, Appellate Court, Circuit Court, and/or County Court bench. Of those 148 judges, at least 93 of them (63%) have the “ASA”, “AUSA”, and/or “AAG” on their resume. Contrast that with the fact that only 9 of his 148 appointees (6%) had the letters “APD” and/or AFPD” on their resumes. Of the 93 appointees, 57 of them were actually employed as an ASA, AUSA, or AAG at the time of their appointment, while only TWO (2) of the nine defense appointees were working as an APD or AFPD at the time of their appointment.
NEW ATTORNEYS JOIN YOUR FLORIDA BAR
The test scores are in and please welcome another 1,483 attorneys to The Florida Bar. The actual numbers may end up being even higher. The July results include: (UPDATED/CORRECTED)
FIRST TIME TEST-TAKERS STATS ONLY
2,285 applicants sat for the Bar exam for the first time; (3,343 applicants overall took the Bar exam; 1,058 of them had taken the test one or more times before. It is not clear how many of those 1,058 passed the exam).
1,637 of those applicants passed the Bar exam
1,483 have been approved for admission by the Florida Supreme Court while the other 154 have hired Brian Tannebaum to find out why they were not yet approved.**
The top law school pass rates for FIRST TIME test takers:
FIU (again) at 88.8%
UM - 82.5%
UF - 81.3%
The bottom three:
St. Thomas - 50.8%
Florida Coastal - 53.3%***
Florida A&M - 56.8%
*The Eleventh Judicial Circuit currently has a total of 121 judges including 48 that are male and 73 that are female. The breakdown includes: in Circuit Court 34 male and 43 female; in County Court 14 male and 30 female.
**Just Kidding about Mr. Tannebaum, although we all know how fine an attorney Brian is in that field of practice. No cash nor a bottle of Opus One was provided to the Captain by said Tannebaum in exchange for this message.
***Florida Coastal lost their ABA accreditation and will cease to exist as a law school after 2023.
Captain4Justice@gmail.com