Judges, prosecutors and public defenders from the Florida Keys to the Panhandle are vehemently opposing an effort to shrink the number of state judicial circuits, arguing that such a move would further erode public trust in the court system.
The pushback comes as a committee carries out an order from Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos Muniz to make recommendations about the possibility of consolidating the 20 judicial circuits. House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, is pushing the consolidation idea.
During a meeting Friday in Orlando, about 50 people — including state attorneys and public defenders — urged the Judicial Circuit Assessment Committee to scrap the possibility.
Larry Basford, state attorney in the 14th Judicial Circuit, told the committee Florida has the nation’s lowest ratio of circuits per resident. Basford’s Northwest Florida circuit encompasses Bay, Calhoun, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson and Washington counties.
“We’re not talking just about numbers. We’re talking about making the justice system work. … Taking away citizens’ ability to elect their local judicial officials in these rural areas — and that’s the way this (effort) has been perceived — will erode the public trust and confidence in our judicial system,” said Basford, who was among 10 state attorneys who participated in Friday’s meeting. “Bigger does not mean better.”
The Florida Constitution gives the Legislature the authority to make changes in the circuit- and appellate-court systems, based on recommendations from the Supreme Court. In 2022, for example, lawmakers approved creating a sixth district court of appeal and reorganizing some appellate jurisdictions.
Under a 2021 rule, the Supreme Court must consider circuits’ effectiveness, efficiency, accessibility, professionalism and public trust and confidence before recommending changes.
All of the speakers at Friday’s meeting, as well as people who submitted written comments to the committee, argued against reducing the number of circuits. Many suggested adding circuits.
“With the incredible increase in our state’s population, the increasing complexity of our cases and the expanding functions of our trial courts … consolidating our judicial circuits just does not make sense to me,” 10th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brian Haas, whose circuit includes Polk, Highland and Hardee counties, told the panel.
In a June 15 letter to Muniz that spurred creation of the committee, Renner noted that “the size of our judicial circuits varies widely,” ranging from about 2.7 million people in the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County to less than 100,000 people in the 16th Judicial Circuit in Monroe County.
“I believe that the consolidation of circuits might lead to greater efficiencies and uniformity in the judicial process, thereby increasing public trust and confidence,” Renner wrote, adding that consolidation would also lead “to substantial cost savings for Florida’s taxpayers.”
Broward County State Attorney Harold Pryor said he was “in lockstep” with other prosecutors, who he said engage with officials in their circuits. Broward County makes up the 17th Judicial Circuit.
“They rely on us to develop those relationships, to have our ears to the ground, to speak to the citizenry, to share that information with our law-enforcement officials,” said Pryor, whose circuit includes 31 municipalities. “It’s extremely important that we maintain those relationships … because this ensures the public trust.”
Pryor said his circuit is “very diverse.”
“You can do it with all those municipalities. Why do you not envision that being doable by consolidation with others?” committee member Diane Moreland, chief judge-elect of the 12th Judicial Circuit, asked Pryor.
Each geographic region is different, the prosecutor said.
“And so, yes, we’ve been able to do it but also there is an institutional, a cultural memory, a generational memory there that we have to work with, right? And so if we were to expand … then that would slow the wheels of justice, that would make us inefficient, right, because we’re trying to learn different communities that we may not have grown up in. … And so it slows the process and I think our communities will be disadvantaged, not just criminally, but in the civil aspect as well,” Pryor said.
Some judicial leaders also oppose consolidation.
Such a move “will not create appreciable enhancements to efficiency or effectiveness,” 14th Circuit Chief Judge Christopher Patterson wrote to the committee on behalf of the state’s chief judges.
“To the contrary, redefinition may adversely impact sound management principles and critical relationships with other justice partners. Additional fiscal burdens are likely both at state and local levels,” Patterson wrote in a six-page memo on Monday.
The 14-member committee, made up of judges, clerks and attorneys, is chaired by 4th District Court of Appeal Judge Jonathan Gerber. Muniz asked the committee to submit recommendations by Dec. 1, a little more than a month before the 2024 legislative session starts. The committee will meet again Oct. 13.
