The Seventh Judicial Circuit’s Nominating Commission today sent seven names to Gov. Ron DeSantis in a pair of shortlists of candidates for a Volusia County Court appointment and a Circuit Court appointment. The Seventh Judicial Circuit includes Flagler, Volusia, St. Johns and Putnam counties. Circuit Court judges theoretically may be assigned to a bench in any of the four counties at any point during their service.
Today, the court announced that the 43 judges in the circuit have re-elected their colleague, Circuit Judge Leah R. Case, to another term as chief judge. Her two-year term begins July 1. The chief judge supervises the district and serves as its chief administrator while continuing bench duties. Case, a judge since 2010, presides over the felony docket in Daytona Beach.
There are 26 circuit and 17 county judges in the circuit, including Circuit Judges Dawn Nichols and Chris France and County Judges Melissa Distler and Andrea Totten in Flagler County.
In January, DeSantis appointed A. Christian Miller, who had been a county judge, to Circuit Court, creating an opening for a county judge appointment. Miller filled the seat vacated by Judge Terence Perkins, who had retired at the end of September after presiding over Flagler County’s felony and civil docket for six years. (See: “The Fireman’s Son: Flagler County’s Even-Handed, Learned Judge Terence Perkins Retires.”)
Around the same time, the retirement of Matt Foxman, who had presided over felony court in Flagler county for a time but was on the Volusia bench when he retired, created another opening for an appointment to Circuit Court.
Appointments go through a particular process. Every circuit has a Judicial Nominating Commission. Each of its nine members is appointed by the governor. (The Florida Bar used to make half the appointments. That ended two decades ago, reducing the independence of the commission and heightening the partisan aspect of the process.) When a court vacancy occurs outside of an election cycle, the governor requests that the nominating commission convene, seek applicants, interview them in a public meeting and send a shortlist of six names to the governor, who then makes the appointment.
Twelve attorneys applied, six of them for consideration for both the circuit and county court appointments: Lauren Blocker, Jacquelyn Roys Clifton, Charles Hart, Robin Hutcheson, Richard Mantei, Shea McCurdy, Amy Moore, Ann Muenzmay Phillips, Michelle Simonsen, Jeanne Stratis, Andrew Urbanak and Neal Coffman.
The commission conducted the interviews on Monday in a courtroom at the Steven C. Henderson Judicial Center in Daytona Beach and agreed to the following shortlist for the Circuit Court appointment to replace Foxman: Clifton, Hutcheson, Phillips, Simonsen, Stratis and Urbanak.
The commission selected five candidates for the County Court appointment, four of them also shortlisted for Circuit Court: Lauren Blocker, Clifton, Phillips, Stratis and Urbanak.
Clifton, Phillips and Urbanak had also made the shortlist last November for the appointment to replace Perkins, which went to Miller. There’s no set time or deadline for DeSantis to make the appointment, but it’s expected in the next few weeks.
The nominating commission is chaired by Travis Mydock and vice-chaired by Terrence White, with members Casey Arnold, Geremy Gregory, Kelly Parsons Kwiatek, Andrew Morgan, John Reid, Anna Shea and Erica Tesh White.
